How to Get Rid of Echolalia | Tips From Speech Therapist that Worked

Hey guys, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we want to talk about how to get rid of echolalia. We had a video, separate video about what it is and, and why it's happening. We want to talk about how to get rid of it. I don't want to talk about from my experience, what has worked, what hasn't worked. So the first thing I want to talk about is to put it out there. The stuff I say it here, it may or may not work for a child. Age child is a different case. So please don't go home and like say, ah, I tried this like one or two times. It doesn't work. It's a long term thing. What we preach in agents of speech is a long term fix, not short term. Okay. Whilst there are tactics, most of the stuff we teach our strategy anyways that out of the way. So first thing is that, why is there echolalia? Okay. For every thing that we do in therapy, we need to ask why. And sometimes one why isn't good enough when you ask like four or five times until we get to the root of the problem. And I think this is something that a lot of therapists should be doing. If they're not, I'm sure a lot of people are doing it. Okay. And secondly is that parents don't have this kind of mindset. So I'm telling you now, so let's start. So why does a child have echolalia? Okay. Well, the answer is because he has nothing else to do. Right? Usually when children are echoing, it's because there's nothing else to do and they're entertaining themselves. Right? That's most of the time. If your child has a different reason for it, then, you know, you need to go down the list yourself. Okay? I'm not saying that all children have echolalia because they have nothing to do, but usually speaking, they don't. Okay. Second of all, why does he or she have nothing to do? Well, because he isn't playing with toys. All right? There's no toys around or he doesn't want to play it. Okay. All right. So why isn't the child playing with toys? Well, it's because he or she doesn't like it. You know, like there's, there's toys all around. You know, mom buys a lot, doesn't like to play with it. All right, so why does the child not like to play with toys? Why does, why is it so difficult? Well, it's because he or she doesn't know how to. Okay? Usually children who don't like toys is because they don't understand it. Okay. And it's the same as when we just started getting like using a smartphone. Like the elderly would not like it and still use a dumb phone. And nowadays my dad and my mom, they use their smartphones a lot. Why? Because they're more savvy, they know how to use it and therefore they start to like it. And the same for everything that we do in our lives. If we don't know how to use it, don't know about it, we don't really want to engage in it because it's stressful. Right? Okay, so the last question would be why does the child not know how to play with toys? And the reason is because no one taught him or her how to use and play properly. So at the end of the day, why does echolalia happen is because we then give the child a good way to play by himself or herself for that matter. Okay. So that responsibility goes back to us, the adults, the therapists, the teachers, the parents. Right? So that's. If you teach play, it's going to help a lot. And I'm going to put a, a testimonial here of a parent from our courses and she says, my son is 3 year 5 months old who had echolalia. And I was told that he lacked social reciprocity by his teacher. By implementing mains play based approach with my son, I noticed an 80% decrease in echolalia within two weeks. Two months into the Playbase program, I didn't notice any echolalia at all. My son has improved from speaking to two to three words to three to five words, sentences. He's able to express his wants, needs, feelings, describe items and events, yada, yada, yada. I won't read the whole thing. It's basically just the parent saying that, oh, something worked after taking our course. I'm not taking credit for that. Obviously I don't want to. This the thing is all kudos for the mom for taking action. All right, so what happened here was that the kid stopped echoing after learning how to play with the mom. All right, so you need to teach meaningful play. There are a few videos on our channel that teaches you demonstrate with toys about how to play with children and add language goals to it. The first step always when you're teaching with toys is not the language. Okay, We've talked about this many times on Agents of Speech, but this channel, on our Facebook, on groups, people ask me, it's a common question. I play with My kids, but they don't talk. Well, the thing is, you need to teach them to play first, right? So teach them how each thing works, how to play it. Is there a special way? How can we be more resourceful and make it more fun? Okay, so meaningful play always starts off with number one, tool use. What is tool use? Meaning like how they use the toy in relation to objects. Right? So for instance, if they're cutting something, they better be using a knife, not using a fork, you know, or fork is still okay because we still use it in real life, right? They better not use something else like just like that and tear the toy apart. It needs to be meaningful. They may cut it nicely, and it needs to be the correct use of the tool. Okay. Secondly, is that. Is there a sequence to play the whole toy? Some toys, they're sequenced already baked into the. To the toy itself. Because if you do it in a different sequence, it won't work. For instance, if you're playing with, like a vending machine or you're playing with one of those, you know, piggy. What's that called? I forgot the name of the toy. But basically, like, you put the burger in and you press and their. Their belly gets bigger. That kind. Well, it's already baked in because it's intuitive to do that, right? You put it in, you press, and you wait until it explodes. Right? So those are great, but still, you still have to teach the child the sequence, even if it's intuitive, because you can't take anything for granted. All right? So meaningful play comes from using the toys correctly and then using it in the correct sequence. Okay? Thirdly is that you and him or her have to play together and take turns and to. He knows when to give you the turn and so on. Okay? So these things I do cover in a separate video. And also we talk about that in the courses, which it's up to you to join or not. Okay? And the last thing is, I want to talk about is play is the best learning system there is. All right? But you have to build up that system through teaching meaningful play. And how you do that is that you have to sell the toy, okay? You have to sell it. You cannot just give it to them and think that, are you going to play? I bought a lot of toys. You know, the whole wall is toys. They're just. And what happens is just that he throws it on the floor, right? I have a kid who is my student. He. The mom is like, hey, Ming, how come he only plays toys correctly when he's Here I buy him the same thing at home. He just throws it on the floor. Well, because you need to be a good playmate, okay? That's first. That's the first thing. Second of all, you need to have control of the situation. You can't just give it to them. You have to make them understand playing is also learning when they do the correct thing is actually more, more socially rewarding to them to listen to us and play together because it's fun, it's funny. You know, I, I make jokes, I make stupid sounds. I put things in the wrong places. I put toys in their, in the shirts, right? I do different things to make sure that the experience playing with me is good. And you might say, ming, I'm not a good playmate. I'm not good at it. That's why I want someone to help me, yada, yada, yada. But the thing is, no one can replace you at home, okay? No one's going to like go to your house at like 11pm or 10pm right before the child's like sleeping time and play with him, okay? That would be crazy. So you need to do it whether or not you want to or not, okay? That's something you have to own up because the child needs you. And this is something that only you can do. All right, so that's all for today's video for Echolalia at the very last point, right? Echolalia only has a function, okay? That function, if it's for entertainment, like we said just now, then all you need to do is to find a substitution, a replacement behavior for that entertainment, which nine times out of 10 is playing with toys, which is the most naturalistic and the most the thing that makes sense for children because most of the time when we were kids, we didn't have the TV or whatever shows. So when mom's cooking, I'm playing with toys, right? When that's why I want. When you're busy, you just put toys that they know how to play on the floor. They will play by themselves. And this is something you have to teach that they don't know. And that's our responsibility. All right? So that's all for today's video. If you haven't, you should go to agents of Speech.com combining class for a free 30 minute class on actually teaching your child to combine words together. Okay? Because if your child is echoing, those phrases aren't really sentences. Those phrases are just remembered phrases from somewhere somehow, okay? And for them to craft real sentences from words that they know and interchange words or whatever you need to teach them the skills required. And I'll tell you what. How. In that 30 minute free private class. Okay, so that's it. I'll see you in the next video soon. Bye. Bye.