Monday morning: Why Your Speech Delayed Child Lacks Focus | www.AgentsOfSpeech.com

I'm having with my, with my, with my students. My God. Yeah, I can't even talk every day. Okay, so let me know if you have any questions at the moment in time. If not, I'll keep on going. Alrighty, so, Alrighty, so in terms of focus. Okay, so I'll keep on going because this is a topic that I can talk about for like three hours straight and give a, give a mini lecture kind of thing. So what is happening? Oh no, it's gonna. Okay, like that. Can you see my screen? Yes, you can. Wait. Okay, cool. There you go. Okay. Much better. Nope, that's not better. I'm so sorry. Okay, so I can talk about this forever because parents always tell me that focus is an issue. So let's talk about, first of all, eye contact when children look at your face or not. So how do you teach it? I released a video on YouTube, I think around last week talking about whether you should do eye contact or not. But the summary is, dude, you shouldn't teach eye contact as a main task. And that's because if you want your child to look at you, that's something very selfish. And we don't like it when we, we don't like it when we're focused on what you want as a parent, we want to focus on what the child wants, right? So what is the function of looking anyways? So the function of eye contact, there's like two reasons. Number one is that we use our eyes to initiate communication, right? That's the best way to initiate communication. So a reason why we do it, how we do it in a real life scenario, is that when we want to talk to somebody, whether it's a stranger or not, we want to ask for the direction our, our eyes will look at that person first. And then we will go forward and go like, excuse me, like that, right? So it's a way to initiate communication. So if your child already has a way to initiate with you, meaning they might scream, shout, hit you, whatever, to teach them the eye contact to replace that initiation behavior like that is super, super hard, right? It's super hard because you cannot take, you cannot put your eyes, your fingers into the eyes and move them towards your face. It's just impossible. So that's the function number one of eye contact. If you guys think about focus as eye contact, then, you know, you should listen to this. Number two is that we use eye contact to look at someone's face, to look at some cues from like information on the face. Like whether, if we ask for, for instance, if you ask your spouse or you ask your parents, hey, what do you want to eat today? After that question, I'm going to look at their face to see, to judge what they're thinking. To judge what they're thinking. So it might be like. It might be that they don't like it, right? If they don't like it, then I can actually see from their face and I will know what's happening, right? So those are the two reasons why, why you want to. Why you want to actually have eye contact. But that's too hard of a reason for someone to understand, okay? That's actually too hard. So if you're talking about looking at your eyes to communicate, you have to remember, is it that you're being selfish? Are you wanting your child to look at you because you think that's appropriate? If you. If that's true, then you shouldn't do it. Okay? There must be a reason why, there must be a reason why, why you're teaching eye contact. And if it's those two reasons, it's usually very hard to. For your child to understand at the moment. Okay? They really don't understand. They have to look at our facial expressions for information. And number two, use eye contact to actually send a signal. They want to talk to you, okay? So remember that. So don't teach that. But if you really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really want to. The only reason why I would teach it in the beginning is, as I said in the video and on YouTube, you can go check it out, is that they have some skill that requires them to look at your face. So for instance, if the only thing, the only thing they're working on is like, speech sounds, which they have, like real problems with pronouncing words and whatever, then I would say, then I would say, hey, by all means, man, go. Go for it. Go for it. Go teach eye contact first. But in a normal situation, in the language context, there's a lot more things you have to worry about before teaching eye contact. Okay? So let me, let me give you example of how you want your child to focus. Okay? So instead of shooting for eye contact as a way of saying, okay, this is focus. When you think about, like, response responding as a way of focus, okay, Focus is just means, like, let me define it by my terms. I don't know, the real term is. And I'm too lazy to look online. So focus to me is like being able to sustain attention on a certain thing or person. Right? But attention doesn't mean eye contact. Right. I can focus on doing something without looking. I can type without looking. That when I close my eyes, I'm still typing. Doesn't mean I'm not focusing on typing. You understand what I mean? I can, I can massage someone without looking. Doesn't mean that I'm not focusing when I'm looking. No. So sorry for the weird examples. But anyways, so. So if you think about it, then the way that we actually define what is attention is different, right? So how do we do it is actually by teaching how to respond correctly. Teaching how to respond correctly. And how do you do that? So if you are a parent right now, if you are a caregiver or someone who repeats a lot when you ask a question, when you say something that needs a response, for instance, a command or like a question, an instruction, and you ask it over and over and over again, then there's going to be a problem. There's going to be a problem. And the reason behind it is because if you say it over and over again, you're teaching your child to listen to you a few times before responding. And that's not good. And that's actually like teaching your child to ignore you. That's not good at all. So what you should do instead, which I actually just told my client, and she's trying to change her behavior, like, good job on her, is that you might have a bad habit of repeating your questions and your commands and thinking that you can actually annoy your child into doing it. The thing you should do is actually to say it once and make it count. Say it once and make it count. So if you say it once and they're not like your child isn't responding, you have to give a certain feedback. Something like, hey, man, you're not listening. Hey, you didn't do it. That's not the right answer. Can you try again? And then you have to try again. And you need to give the same question or the same command, but with actually with actually a way to help them. If you keep on asking and keep on giving instructions, but you're not helping the child, you're setting them up for failure. And we've talked about this in another video, but I think it's very, very important that you guys understand that attention or focus is because of how you present a question or a task. If your child isn't focusing on you, it means that they probably don't know what's happening. And what I mean by don't know what's happening is this. Okay? They don't understand why they have to listen, why the instructions are given, why they have to do it, and what happens after they respond. Okay. So if they don't understand something, the best way is to give them a reward afterwards so that the behavior will continue. Because now that there's a reason at this moment in time, I hope everyone is on the same page. If you're watching this on YouTube, sorry, the live stream started later because I was using a different browser. It didn't work. Sorry about that. But hey, this is the first live ever stream that we're doing regularly. So if you just joined us, we're doing this every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and 9am Jakarta time. But that's actually like 10pm EST, like in the USA. So I think that this time works the best for me and most of the people in this world. But we're kind of leaving the people in Europe out of this. So at any time, let me know if you need. If you have any questions. All right. Any. Any questions are welcome. Just going to take a. Take a sip. Okay. So I'm going to keep on going. If you have any questions, just let me know. Okay, I'm watching. I'm looking at any comments. There are. Okay. So to get your child's attention, you have to get a few things straight. We talk about not repeating. That's the instruction side. And then giving a reward and praising. That's on the reward side at the end. That's the consequence. So I want to. If you've actually sent your child to therapy and your therapist actually took the time to teach you these kind of things to talk about it, then you would know what I'm about to say. Okay. And if you've actually gone online and checked out a lot of stuff, searched up stuff yourself, you actually know this yourself. And this thing is very aba, meaning it's very Applied Behavioral Analysis. And what that is, it's like, it's just behavioral therapy for children on the spectrum. Not every time it's children on a spectrum. But what I'm about to tell you guys is something that they use a lot and I use a lot of. I still use it a lot, and I like it. Okay, what this is is what we call, like ABC of therapy. And what is abc? What's that? So A is called antecedent. Antecedent is a crazy word for. It's just a really hard word for instruction. The setting, what cues, what prompts you're using, and then the behavior. That's A. Okay. And then B is what is the behavior itself. What you're shooting for what you're teaching your child. Okay? It might be like toilet training. It might be changing drinking water. It might be washing hands. It might be meowing. It might be whatever. So whatever you're teaching is a behavior. And then you have the C, which is the consequence, which helps the most. Okay? Which helps the most. So see the consequences, like rewarding, praising. Sometimes if you are, like punishing, that's also like a type of consequence. Okay? So all these stuff that I'm about to tell you, you might have known already. Okay, so the ABCs. Why am I talking about this? Because sometimes. No, not sometimes. A lot of times when parents first come to me, the first concern is always that, hey, my child isn't like, they're not even focusing. They're not even focusing. I tell them to draw something, they don't even focus. Well, you have to remember, what's the instruction? Did you demonstrate what is the desired outcome? What's the behavior? Did you tell them exactly what it is? Right. Do they understand? Most of the time, if they don't do something and they're not focusing, it means that they don't understand. They don't understand what you want from them, and therefore they would go away and just throw stuff at you. Okay? That's just. That's just how it is. But if you really take the time to make them understand in a fun way, nine times out of ten is that they're going to have a lot more attention, a lot more joint attention on the task. Okay? So you have. This is something I cannot tell you right now. Hey, do this, do that. Because I don't know what the task or behavior is going to be for you, okay? So take the time to really, really, really demonstrate and explain the task and what you want out of it, okay? That's why it's super hard to teach eye contact with strangers, right? Because you can't. You don't really demonstrate it, right? As a parent, as, like. As like myself, I don't even say hi to a stranger. And you expect a child who is speech delayed to look at a stranger and say, hello, uncle, and good morning, auntie. That's just impossible. How are you going to demonstrate that? And how are you going to let them understand why you're doing it at the age of like 2 to 3 or 4 or 5? Impossible. Impossible. The only way that we learn is by looking at you. So if you want them to do that, you got to do it yourself, man. You really have to. You really have to. If you really want them to talk to strangers. You have to talk to strangers is what I mean. Now that we got that out of the way, how's your instruction going? Have you said it over and over again? If you say over and over and repeatedly, what it means is you're teaching your child to actually ignore all of your instructions and commands. So you say it once, I don't need a response. Say it twice, I don't need to respond. Say it three times, I don't need to respond. Why should I respond? It looks like there's no consequence coming up. It seems like I don't need to care about you. Yeah. So it's kind of like the story of the boy who cried wolf, right? The first time. Yeah. Okay, fair, I'll listen. But the second time, the second time that you call wolf, they start to like have a disbelief that there's actually a result coming out of it. So you have to make your instructions its time worth. And what I mean by that, say it once and then see if they do it. Wait, if they don't think about why, think about why do they not understand the whole situation? Then you can tell them, hey, you didn't do it. Or you know, say in a more child friendly way, I'm sorry, something like this, hey, you didn't do it. Or like, hey, whatever Steve, you didn't do it. You didn't answer that. That kind of feedback, you need to tell them or even if they don't really understand what you're saying, the tonality will let them know that they didn't do certain thing or you, you're disappointed. Okay? Kids will understand those stuff much better than words. And the reason is because they're delayed and they're seeking for different types of information to help them fill in the gaps. Okay? So you have to give a feedback and then think about why. Think about why it's not happening. So when you think about why it's not happening, you have to think about if you've given the enough instructions and help for them to understand. So you have to circle back and go back. Let's say that you're teaching actually to say a word or like repeat what you say. If your child isn't repeating and you keep on saying like say ah, say e, say whatever, say, say cup, say towel, all these kind of words and they're not responding. You're actually deteaching, like I say reverse, teaching them to respond to you because you're just throwing noise at them. Right. So with that said, that's actually Quite how to say. Yeah, you should say it once. And then help them. And then help them think about how usually if they don't reply right, tell them they do not repeat what you say. That's the reason. The reason behind it is because they. They cannot do it yet. They don't understand why they have to do it. Right. So start with some, like, big movements first, which we've talked about in the last live video. All right, so, Vonnie. Hi, Bonnie. Bonnie says, I saw an ABA and sensory therapy from a friend who got an autistic child. They used loud voice. Repeat one word over and over. Make it louder if not done by the child. I felt like you treated like, as a retarded person, but they said that is how the therapy is. Is it true? No, as much as I don't want to. You see, I hate. I hate it when therapists, like, bash each other because it makes us. It's like a bad way to. Like a bad way to market yourself. Right? But it really isn't the way that you do it. So if you do it, then you should stop, too. So the reason behind. Let me tell you why. Okay? They use a loud voice. Repeat one over and over and make it louder if not done by the child. So let's use the framework that we just learned. Okay? The A, B, and C. I think you already forgot. But anyways, I'm just going to go for it. So the instruction is like a word, like ball. Let's say ball or something. Ball. And then your child doesn't respond. And what you do is you make it even louder. So what are you doing? Does the child understand your instruction? Probably not. So when you use. You say it louder, hoping that it will clarify things. It probably wouldn't. What it is, is actually. It would usually. It would most probably be that it's actually a punishment. So I'll punish the child for not giving a response. But they don't even know what the response is, so they're even more puzzled. Okay. They're even more like, don't know what's happening. So when that happens, what you need to think about what you need to do is to actually. To actually teach them why they have to say, ah. Okay, I should say or say ball or anything. You know what, Vonnie? Like, when you ask me this, like, I don't think even a child who is mentally retarded will understand this task. No one will understand that. Why was that? Okay, what you need to do is to get something. Withhold it. As I've told You taught in my courses and in my videos is to get something they want. Let's say that this is something they want, okay? Actually, never mind. Let me get something that they really want, right? So let's say that they want this. Like, this switch. They like it. Somehow your child knows how to play it. And then they really want it. And you want to teach them to communicate in words or like sounds. So the best way to do it is to let them play it for a bit. Let them taste it. They play it for a bit, right? And then you press a button here that they don't know how to undo. And usually that's this little small button here. Or on an iPad, it might be like you lock it. Once you lock it, they're like, I cannot. You take it away, you turn it on. Let them show them that you can do it. And then when they grab it, stop them. And then you say the word, right? You say. You say like, play. And then if they don't respond, you don't respond in a higher or like a louder tone because that's not going to help them. And you're evaluating why. And then afterwards you think about, okay, dude, so they didn't understand because it's too hard, maybe. Okay, so I'm going to go down one level and try to just do, like, mouth shapes. So I'm going to tell the kid, hey, you didn't do it. You didn't say play. Let's try again. Like this. How about like this? So if you still cannot do it, then I'll think again. Oh, probably I didn't help him enough. And I'll say, hey, okay, so. What I need to do is I need to say another feedback and say, hey, you didn't do it. You didn't do like that. Let me help you. I push the jaw down and I just give it to him. Good job. Here you go. Okay, so another big mistake that we often neglect about teaching is the power of repetition. You have to keep on doing it. You have to keep on doing it. Okay? You have to keep on. You just have to keep on grinding it. You do it one time successfully, doesn't mean anything. You gotta do it like 30 times. I just pulled that number out of nowhere. It depends on the child. Okay, so, Savannah, thanks for your question. He says, hello, Ming. Hi, Ming. I know what to do to stop the drooling. Yeah, of course you can, but because I know Zavana Sivana is working with my client at home right now. Thanks, Sivana. But let's say that first because there's other people watching on both YouTube and Facebook. I'll first talk about why there's Jordan. Okay. After my cat calms down. Yeah. So why this doing this usually? Usually. Usually. Okay. There are more reasons to it, but two reasons why it doesn't happen. Number one is that. Is this. Okay. Number one is they cannot manage the saliva. They don't know how to, like, control it in their mouths and then swallow it. That's. That's number one reason. Okay. Number two reason. The number two reason is they cannot feel the saliva and it's coming out. Okay. So we have probably never tried the number. The first reason of being not able to control the saliva and to actually swallow saliva that we see in a lot of adult cases. Those are like stroke cases. If you have an elderly at home that, like, has a stroke, then, you know, it most probably is. Not really. Not most probably, but, you know, one of the biggest problems is that, you know, they have a weakness in their. In their muscles and they don't know how to control the tongue to, like, actually swallow it. Okay, we never actually tried that. But number two, the sensory one, we've all tried it. If we've been to a dentist. Okay, if we've been to a dentist, then you must have tried it before. All right, you must have tried it before. If you've been through anesthetics. No, that's the wrong word. Okay. Painkillers. I'm not going to further embarrass myself with my pronunciation. So if you've been through painkillers, you cannot feel your mouth by accident. You're going to have drooling happen because you couldn't feel it there. Okay? Okay. So for our client here, Savannah most probably is her sensory because she can eat, although she has a side of weakness in her mouth. She can eat and she can drink water and she can use a straw. So most probably it's about the sensory and how do we stop the drooling. For her in particular is by doing the. Is by desensitizing her mouth. Okay. If you're watching this and your child also is drooling, I'm just telling you, drooling stops at around one and a half years old. Okay. And by the way, to tie in the topic of this video, drooling also happens when your child is focusing. When they're not very good at managing the saliva inside their mouths, when they focus, they will also drool. So that's also normal. Adults do it too. Adults. When we focus too much, we also do Drool a lot. Like one of my friends, he just keeps on drooling whenever he's playing a game, which is kind of funny. But anyways, how do you stop it, Savannah, is that we cannot do it now because she's scared of all the top tools and all the things that go inside the mouth. We have to brush her mouth to desensitize. Not really decent. Maybe like, to sensitize it, because I don't know whether it's too sensitive or a lack of sensitivity. I need to save myself. Okay. If I were you, I would at least let her know, let our client know that there is drooling happening. She needs to know what's happening, and then for her to wipe it herself when she feels that there's something here. At least she can go like that and sip it back in. All right, so what I want you to do, Ivana, if you really want to get rid of drooling, if you really want to get rid of drooling, is to do what we're doing with the toilet training as well, right? Try to spray some water here and let her feel. If she can feel it and feel it here, and she starts going like that, then that's good. That's okay. My guess is, even if you spray water, the heat here, she's not going to care. All right? We got to get her to care first. We're going to spray more water here, get it all wet, and then say, hey, it's wet. You're drooling. And then let's see what she does. Okay, so that's my. That's the less intrusive way to do it for her. Okay. All right. Devoni, you said, have you gotten experience handling a toddler who has a controlling character? So, example, during training, he or she ignores you instructions by purpose. Yeah, of course. Of course. That's actually 80% of all children. That's actually 80% of ALL children, Vonnie. And the reason I say this is because if they don't control you, they would have learned the way to do stuff a long time ago, Okay? They would have learned doing it themselves long time ago if they weren't controlling. So how I would do it is never given. As I told you, just don't give in. Have a routine set up that they need to understand. They need to listen to you. If you watched inside the online course, Vonnie, I did talk about how you have to. For these kind of children, especially, you need to have micro, micro, micro commitments where they need to do things for you, no matter how small, if they're controlling it means that it's still not a no brainer for them. They still think that they're losing out on you. You have to find tasks that are totally super easy for your child to do. Willingly. Okay? That's the magic word word, willingly do it. They willingly do it for they willingly do it at a price. So, meaning if you're holding something that they want, are they willing to do it? Sorry, if you're watching on YouTube, I'm trying to make it lower. Okay, There you go. Yeah. Are they willing to do it? Is your child willing to do it? If they're not, then do something easier. Get something that they want even more. Okay? Upgrade your bait with a better, like a lack of a better word for it. Upgrade it. Get something even more desirable. All right? The only way that they understand that you have control over them. Well, I don't mean this in a bad way. What I mean is like the only way that they understand that you are like hosting, you are the person, the owner of this house, the owner of everything around you, is that you need to do things that are easy for them to do and give them good stuff when that happens. Okay? So if they ignore you on purpose, then you do something that they cannot ignore, right? For instance, just you do stuff like body imitation, right? You do stuff like touch your nose, touch your face, touch your head, tap the table. That kind of stuff works because you can take her hand and actually finish it for her if you're telling her to do like talk. You cannot go in with your fingers and make them talk yourself. Right? It's impossible. I wish that was possible, but it's impossible. So you need to start with those easy, super easy tasks to build commitment towards your child first, or else it's not going to work. All right? And this is what I wanted to talk about as well. I realized that structured tasks have a lot more merit than it has at home simply because you lose out on the home court advantage that I get when I'm at the therapy center. And you also lose out my facial expressions, my presence, and also my way of talking to children. So structured task makes it easier for you and your child to follow, especially you. What I would say from now on, if you want your child to focus and don't ignore you even on purpose, is to do very structured stuff. So for instance, let's get piece of biscuit, all right? That I would break it up into very small pieces. I put it in a bowl, and then I'll just keep Doing it for like five minutes. I'll just. Oh, you want this? Let's pretend that didn't happen. Okay, so what I would do is. What I would do is. Sorry, I'm just so distracted. There's, like, stuff everywhere. Now, why would you do that? Okay, so the bowl of biscuit is all small. Okay. Vonnie, this is to you, man. Like, you have to follow this to the dot bowl of biscuits, small pieces inside. Let's say that she likes biscuit or chocolate or anything that she really likes. Okay. One at a time. You pick it up. She's trying to grab it. Good. Turn her hand into open palm. As we were talking about. Give it to her. That's one while she's eating. Then you're picking up the next one. You're waiting. Once she finished eating, she wants it again. She doesn't need to be sitting down, by the way. And when she comes over to do it, flip her hand again like that. Eat it. All right, the next one. Once her hands become semi automatic, you might want to add some more tasks to it. And what I like to do is, like, touching all around the face. You want to try, like, oh, touch your nose. Touch your nose. You help her do this, and then you take her hand and you do it together. All right? After that, give it to her. Eat. Keep on doing it. Keep on doing it. Just manipulate her hands. Manipulate her hands. If she really is someone, as you say, is a controlling character, I've seen many kids who would restrain from letting me manipulate their hands. So if I'm doing this for them, they're like. They're like, restricting. They're, like, refraining and resisting towards my strength. And they're super strong as well for some reason. And so they're trying to, like, oh, and you're doing like that. So this even happens if they want the treat, they even want the reward, but they still do it for some reason. Sucks. So tell me and try it. If you hold her hand and she resists, which is not, by the way, remember that? I remember you telling me that her hands are very limp. Right. So most probably not, I think so. Zavana said yesterday I gave her pumpkin seeds. I think that she does not like it. So she asked me to clean her mouth by dragging my hand. She. She feels so intimidated by. Oh, irritated with the pieces sticking on her left and right. Yeah. So, Zavana, I think the problem about our client here is that the pumpkin seeds, when it sticks to these size, the bu. This is called Duco. If you want to get textbook the left and the right sides. Number one is she doesn't like the sensory. That we can all agree on. Number two is most probably her tongue cannot go there and finish it on her own. So we're dealing with a few issues here is that the sensory issue of her mouth doesn't really help her. She can identify where it is, but she cannot get to it like that. That's something that I really wanted to work on. But for now, we cannot do it. It's just impossible. So rather than that, you should teach her to use her own hand. So rather than you helping her, because that's not natural. If you help her with it. Right. All right. So, yeah, Anita, nice talking to you again. Body invitation only. Sitting down. Yeah, no need to sit down yet. No need to sit down yet. You don't really need to let your child sit down to do all kinds of stuff. If your child is over three years old, I would highly recommend that you teach them to sit down. But. But if your child at the moment still cannot imitate and you're doing it like to and fro. What I mean by to and fro? Let me start again. Okay, so body imitation. You don't need to sit down. Okay. But if they're over three years old, you should use sitting down as a task of its own. You have to teach them to sit down first before putting the task inside the sitting down. You know what I mean? You have to teach them to sit down first before you teach them anything sitting down. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So you don't need to do it. Bonnie. Invitation. You don't need to do it. All right. You don't need to do that. Okay. Right. So, Fonny. Yes, that's exactly how much health does now. She eats fast and refuses me directing her hands. She even hits me if I try to direct her hand. Yeah, yeah. So if that's the case, then you shouldn't direct your hand at the moment. You have to find something she would die for. Bonnie. And then use that as a way to entice her to let you direct. Okay, so what I would do before I even try. Yeah. It seems like Vonnie is Savannah's child like yours. Not really, but maybe because I haven't haven't seen really seen a lot of your child yet. Vonnie. I've only seen a bit, so I can't say yes or no. Okay, so she doesn't like you helping her point wave. Holding wet food or something mossy. Yeah. So that might be actually a problem with sensory. Right. So what I would do is actually just to. In the beginning, I wouldn't even, like, touch her and hold her and make her do stuff, because we know she can actually talk, right. The problem now is that she doesn't understand that she can have help from us. And that might be because she's stubborn or she's really sensitive. And I'm leaning towards the more sensitive now, given that you told me that she doesn't like holding, like, wet and mossy mushy stuff. So what I want you to do from now on is to still have the bowl of food that she really loves. And then what you do, the next step is that you give her every time you just brush her hand, like, just like, touch her all over. Oops, my mic came off. Touch her all over and then give it to her. If she's okay with it. Just give it. And what you're doing is pairing the good experience with eating, with you just touching, letting her know that that's okay. And if you want to search more on this, Vonnie, and also, Savannah, if you're watching this, you can also. You can also search up on this. It's something called tactile defensiveness. Tactile meaning like touching. Tactile defensiveness. And usually that's more of a psychological thing. They might have started off with a very bad sensory experience. But the thing is, sensory in human beings are very hardly. It's very poorly understood. At least I'm poorly. I don't really understand it. So I'm telling you that sensory goes up and down, up and down, up and down every day. I might be pretty okay today since I'm very sensitive to sound okay as a person. And a lot of people don't understand. They think I'm just playing around. I'm not, man. Like, for. For real. I feel that sound makes me dizzy and it makes me sleepy. So after church, if I sit too close to the speakers, I will sleep on a Sunday after church for no reason. I should be very energized, but I sleep okay. So that's called a sensory overload. Does your child have that as well? Bonnie, you have to check it out. Okay. But sensory can go up and down, which this is why it's very important for you to normalize it. Wendy says hello. Can I chat you in? Private message. Thanks. Oh, you can send me an email, Wendy, for everyone watching. My email inbox is open for you guys. It's mingagentsofspeech.com. let me type it. Actually, no, I won't. Type it so that only people who are watching will actually find me. So it's mingagentsofspeech.com or else my inbox is going to get flooded. It's already full as it is, so I don't want anyone there. Okay, so back to the point where I'm talking about, like, sensory. All right, Talking about sensory. You have to normalize it, guys. Every day it's going to be a little different for me. Sometimes I'm okay with going to concerts, sometimes I'm not. And I realize that if I sleep enough, the sensory will be more, will be a lot better. If I'm, like, tired and everything, it's very hard for me. I'll get very, like, angst. I'll be very susceptible, meaning very sensitive, you know, Very sensitive. So we have to make sure that he's your children, you guys, your children are okay with touching different textures. And we don't do it by just forcing it on them. We do something that is slowly increasing the difficulty. We need to let them understand that it's actually okay to touch this kind of stuff. And then most probably is because of one traumatic event. I feel like I don't have any theory to back this up yet. I'm going to go out and find it, and then I'll tell you about my practical experience, is that when I'm teaching children how to get their, like, haircut, this stuff, whenever you cut their hair, they go stream, they scream and they run away, right? It seems like it was. When I do, like, ask them about the case history and everything, it seems like it's always starting from, like, one bad experience that had happened, and after that, they just associated everything bad with it. Everything bad. Yeah. So, Vonnie, if it's sensory sensitivity, that's the first diagnosis made by a specialist psychologist you met a few months ago. Then, yeah, you should totally start doing some desensitization at home. And what I mean by that is just for her to let you touch her. Just to let you touch her. So everything that we've been doing for a bit, and from the videos I see, sometimes I see that you are also, like. You also want things to happen, right? You're too fast. Slow down. Because children who are, like, tactile, defensive, meaning touch me. Defensive against touching. Because they have a certain. They have a certain bad experience about getting touched by some stuff or, like, textures, then that really means. Yeah, then it really means. Right. You have to desensitize it and you have to slow down. Okay? So I don't Want to use this experience. But, you know, if you have had a bad experience about something and people come at you, let's say you had a bad experience about getting sold on the street by sleazy salespeople. If a salesperson comes up to you, like, whoa, like, hey, ma', am, can I have, like, five minutes of your time? Whatever, you're not gonna like it. So whereas if you go slowly and you, like, talk nicely and approach them in a soft way, then it's much easier to actually help them. Okay. Yeah, I can tell that you're impatient. Yeah. Zavana, if you're having. Yeah, I'm actually making a video about haircuts in the online course. So if you guys are inside already, it's going to be available this week or two. Okay. And you can use the framework for anything. Okay. It's just a framework I learned working as a ABA therapist back in Hong Kong. It's called desensitization. Full credit goes to my supervisor there. Back long time ago. I think she's still there. Very good person. Very, very good. Taught me a lot of stuff, and now I'm teaching you guys. So desensitization is very important. And a lot of therapists will discount sensitivity as a reason behind a lot of stuff, especially aba, Especially sometimes speech. Okay. OT occupational therapists are all about sensory. So, yeah, you guys have to be very, very patient about this stuff. Very, very patient. You just as I was teaching Savannah about. About. What's that called? Toilet training. Desensitization is also the same thing. You have to be slow about it. You have to be slow about it because they already had a bad experience going through some certain things that made them. Didn't want to do that they didn't want to like. Sorry, I'm getting very distracted by my cat again. I'm so sorry. It's like playing with my jar. Anyways. And I wonder how you guys work at home with your kids around. It's just impossible, man. Yeah. So you have to be very, very patient about it. All right? You have to be very, very patient. And you cannot see results in a day or two. Right. In terms of sensitivity stuff, what I know is that it takes a long time. It takes a long, long time. There was one child who came to our clinic in Hong Kong around, like, two. Actually, three years ago. My God, like three years ago. And the senior therapist back then asked if I could see any things that I could comment on about the kid. And of course, it's a test, right. From the boss. And I had to be careful what I said. And the thing was, it's actually that he didn't like to wear long sleeve clothes or like long pants. I actually don't like pants as well. I'm always in shorts. I just feel like it's not. It's very hot. But that kid, whenever they would sleep, he was always scratching, scratching, scratching. Getting it out of the way, getting out of the way. So apparently that's also a sign of sensitivity. So if you can see your child doing that kind of stuff, you have to think about what you have to desensitize your. Your child upon. Right. For Zivana, that's the mouth for sure. The hands. Yeah. The feet, as I remember, she's still tiptoeing. It's something I want to work on as well. Okay. Later. It just boggles my mind that it hasn't been solved yet since so many years. Just as a toilet training, if you do the steps of desensitization and step by step learning and using the time to teach her the correct sensory input and anticipating, then it shouldn't be a problem. Right. I just hurts my mind that Savannah, she is still tiptoeing and she still has problem with toilet training. It means that not enough effort has gone in. Not enough correct effort, I would say. And that's not your fault. It's just the people who have been supervising, they didn't think that it wouldn't work on her. Right. And then it needs to be very customized and. Yeah, yeah, Vonnie, my cats are very, very funny. Yeah, yeah. And same for you, Vonnie. If you have, like, sensory issues in your child, you have to find out and then make sure that she's okay. At least for you to touch her or else without the touching part, it's very hard to teach her more stuff. Okay. Especially if she has difficulty in pronouncing words. You're gonna have to touch her mouth. That's just the end of it. And she hates it. Then she's not gonna talk. Right. So for now, just go and teach her how to be touched. Okay. I know it's. It's difficult, right? So to tie back into, like, the whole thing about focus. The last thing I want to talk about is this is perfect. So if your child is. There's a lack of focus, you don't like it or whatever. One of the main reasons why is because they don't like it. They don't like how they're treated, the sensory input and all that. So you need to take a look. If your child is going like this. When you're talking, it means you're too loud. It means you're talking too close to them. Okay. If your child runs away, if you put your face towards them, it means you're too close. They don't like the sensory of being too close. Proximity is also a sensory, by the way. You know, if I put my hand here, they can, they can feel it. All right. Even if the child isn't looking, if I put my hand right here telling them not to move, they won't move. Right. It's also a sensory input. Somehow they can feel it. I don't know why. Some energy, woo woo kind of stuff. Not really. It's just proprioceptive. Okay. They just can feel it here. Right. That's also sensory input. Hi, miss. Hi. Water pistols. How are you? Yeah. So yes. Well, Vonnie says to be honest, I haven't taught my child to brush teeth. Yeah, that's gonna be difficult. I mean, you're gonna have to do it step by step. And the best way to do it for me, how I've done it with other clients and what I've taught is by doing it together. Once your child knows how to imitate. So if she's so strong willed, she's gonna be wanting to do it herself. Right. So I don't think that's the biggest issues right now, Bonnie. And the biggest issue is to get her to be okay with you touching her or else later on you cannot really hold. Hold her hand to brush her teeth. Okay, so it's the, it's coming down to the last minute of our live time and I'll be at, I'll be here at the same time at 9am and if you haven't, you guys go to agentsofspeech.com check out what I have there. There are two courses that I'm making. So if you guys want to go check it out and go on the waiting list. The current one is. Right. Rather basic, I believe. But the two other ones, one is called zero from zero to words. That's teaching your child how to do verbal imitation from nothing. So I think that's very important. A step by step way to do it right. And another course is about like word combination combiners, how you like combine words together. So if you guys are interested in that, go to agentsofspeech.com and check out, check it out. Sign up for the waiting list because that one I'm actually doing right now and trying to make the course with my online clients. We're trying to teach children how to expand sentences using, like, extra cues, like, visual gestures. More on the gestures. So if you haven't, also go to my YouTube channel and check out the video about expanding sentence length using gestures. That's super cool. We're actually getting a lot of progress with my online client. Before, he would, like, speak one or two words, but now it's like, if you cue the correct way with the gestures. If you teach him the gestures first, and then you cue. He can talk in, like, three or four words now, which is awesome. All right, so. All right, guys, that's all for today. I'll see you guys on Wednesday morning. So that's it for now. I'm gonna stop it on Facebook right now. So see you guys. Bye.