How to Teach Your Speech Delayed Child to Use More Than Just “I Want”

Hey, everyone, this is Ming here, speech therapist from agentsofspeech.com how's everyone doing? In this episode? We want to talk about why your child is actually stuck with requesting with the same phrase over and over again. And we're talking about children who like to say, I want something, something, something, Mommy, please give me something, something. So if your child is stuck at this kind of phrases, then you would want to watch this. Okay, so there are a few reasons why your child is stuck at these frozen phrases. Okay, we're talking about frozen phrases. Typically, it's phrases like I want certain something, give me certain something, and I want and give me are not really the best way to teach your child at this moment in time, I think. And that's because when you think about it, can your child say, like, you want, he wants, she wants, daddy wants, Mommy wants. I want itself feels like a word. And when you put I want with another thing at the end, it doesn't really increase the amount of semantics. There hasn't been an increase of meaning. Language has not become efficient. It became actually less efficient because now you're actually using I want something just to increase the sentence length, but the meaning behind it is still the same. They're still asking for that something. Whereas, you know, if you were at home, you would say one word or, like, you name the item, you can actually guess that your child wants that already. So to them, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to add the I want. All right, so we're not going to talk about, like, increasing sentence length here. Okay. We have a separate video about it using gestures to increase it, which I'll probably link here. The number one reason is there's no chance to use anything else. Okay. A lot of the times when we do therapy at home or wherever, we're always using rewards. Right? So therefore, the language function of your child asking for something, which is called requesting, is a pretty easy goal to achieve. So therefore, when we get the child to actually ask for something with one word, we're very inclined to actually increase the sentence length. So what other language functions can we do other than requesting? Well, first off is commenting about. Commenting is something like when you see something, you want to comment about it. All right, so maybe when your child sees a bird, he might say, oh, it's a little bird. The bird is outside, something like that. If that's the case, then that is commenting in itself. Other than commenting could be other language forms. Okay. Such as asking for clarification. So if they're puzzled they can actually say something to ask for a clearer explanation. Alright, so a lot of times we use it a lot inside games. We use board games where there's set rules and then us, we might play in a way that is totally violating the rules and they ask for a clarification or, or they ask us to do the correct thing. Whilst you might think this is also requesting, the language function is a little different here. Okay? They're not asking for something, they're asking for us to do something else. So that's actually manipulating us using language. All right? There are also other language functions such as protesting, rejecting, you know, these are the big two that are easy to teach, as easy as requesting. All right, so you, you might want to expand the language function and see what else you can teach your child. All right, Number two reason is there's not enough generalization. So a lot of the times we actually ask our child to learn at the desk or when you, when your child is at the therapy. And if you're using flashcards, that means that they can only use, they can only use those vocabulary words at that context. A better way, a more natural way to do it is after you learn those words over like flashcards and whatever, you have to try and find other ways for them to use it in other contexts. Right? So let's say that you're learning Japanese. Again, I've been using this example for a long time, but you're in the classroom, you're learning vocabs. But if you don't use it in the correct situation at the correct time, at the correct way, then you will probably forget about it. No matter how good you are at memorizing stuff, if you don't use it, you will forget it. So once you teach your child how to use certain words at the table using flashcards or whatever method, the next step is to actually use it in real life. And that's why they are stuck with frozen phrases. And the stuff they learn from iPad or like YouTube videos, those words are lost because they can only use it to recite those YouTube videos, but not in everyday life. Number three reason is your feedback. A feedback of listening to a child when they say something needs to be more diversified. All right, so what I mean by that is, for instance, if a child is using their frozen phrases to talk to you, so what you do is when you hear it, you recast it back to the child in a different form, all right, In a different language structure so that they know, oh, actually I can say it this way as well. This Slowly is a slow way, all right? This slowly makes. Makes them understand. This is also acceptable. It's not only that way that will get what I want. And then number four is actually demonstrating the correct language forms at the correct level of your child. So this might be a little mouthful. So what I mean is, you need to know what the level of your child's language is at right now. So, for instance, if they're talking in two words, then you want to talk in two to three words, maybe just one level up, all right? Keep all your language in correct grammar, okay? You got to do it in correct grammar. And then when you talk to them, keep it as simple as possible and diversify your language form to them, okay? In the correct way, in the correct time. And this is where you actually demonstrate what the language function of commenting is, what the language function of rejecting is, what the language function of manipulating other people in order to get what you want. And your child is probably already doing these kind of things, but just not in the correct language form. So catch it, see it, and then try to demonstrate yourself in the correct way. All right? So if this was useful, please like this video. Please subscribe and also share to people who need it, all right? It really helps when you show YouTube that you like these kind of videos. It shows it to more parents who need this kind of information, all right? And with that said, if you haven't, Please go to agentsofspeech.com checklist to grab a bunch of toys and tools that I recommend to parents who are teaching their children at home, okay? And at this time of recording, it's very important that you do what we say in these videos and have the tools actually implemented at home, all right? So if you have any questions, comment below. Let me know what's going on, what you are struggling at home with, and what's the big wins as well when you're teaching your child at home, all right? So with that said, thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll see you in the next video real soon. Bye.