Non-verbal ASD and What You Can Do!

Stop talking to me. Hello, welcome to this live on Monday, Monday Night Live. And today we're going to talk about, Today we're going to talk about asd, nonverbal. The reason why we're talking about this is because for the past few months, probably the most number of people who inquire with me are parents who have non verbal children. Okay? There are children who, who have parents who ask me about, you know, oh, how do I talk about story, how about whatever. But at the end of the day it seems like that most parents who talk to me are those who want to know more about how to make the children start to start talking. Especially to them, to have a two way conversation, right? And don't get me wrong, this is very, very, very, very important. And I might have already told you a few things about this, okay? But it doesn't hurt to repeat. And the thing is about teaching nonverbal children is to set your expectation correctly and to truly understand about like how they feel, how they are as a person and why they aren't communicating yet. Okay? So first of all, you have to remember that, that there's speech and there's language. Two parts, right? A nonverbal child maybe is because their speech abilities aren't there yet. And if it's only speech, then their language should be developing rather. Okay, they can understand you nicely, they can perform the commands. Good. But the thing is, when they start talking, it's very hard to like initiate to start talking. And especially those on the spectrum when we are dealing with speech problems, it becomes complicated. And I'm not here to discuss the reasons behind it. Right. I'm just telling you, usually if a child with ASD has speech problems, it can be, it can be and most probably will be rather complicated. And so this is what I'm telling you. If your child isn't talking to you yet and is diagnosed with asd, and probably when you tell them to, if he knows or she knows how to imitate the sounds coming out are wrong, then you know, you need to work on that speech. All right? And you might ask me, hey, do, am I supposed to like, how do you work on speech? Right. Especially for a child, for a parent at home. And during these trying times, speech is a big no, no. You know, like when I work in the clinic right now, I only see like only two clients right now who I truly trust. And you know, I, I be very careful and I know that they will be careful and I don't see anyone else other than me, but I'm Fine with it, right? So the thing about it is that you have to. You have to understand speech requires a lot of. A lot, a lot, a lot of repetition, okay? You have to see the mouth moved. You have to feel how the sounds are. Like. You have to hear the sound multiple times, okay? Just remember how hard it is for, like, for you. For. For your parents to speak English, right? Especially if you're in Indonesia. Think about. There are people who cannot do the R for life. And if you make them try it, it's very difficult. And to be honest, I think really everyone can do that. Like the R this one, right? It's just a matter of practice because when I was young, I couldn't do it either, okay? It's because my dad used to do a lot for some reason. And then I kind of picked it up and tried myself at home, right? And so is whistling. I mean, like, I picked it up as well because someone cool is doing it, which was my dad back then, you know? So therefore, you need to understand, if you're dealing with a speech problem, you have to see it and understand it that all the sounds coming out and they have. That they have to imitate is like you trying to say a sound that you cannot do. Okay? For instance, might be th sound for you, like, in English, might be like in whatever, I don't know. And maybe in French, like the one that, you know, there's a lot of throat sounds in French, like, Like, I don't know how to do it, right? It sounds disgusting when I try to do it. So if you understand that, okay, you understand how much practice it needs for a normal human being like me and you, right? Imagine your child or, you know, your friend's child or whatever, like anyone on the spectrum or anyone who has a speech disorder, imagine how hard it is, okay, to get all those sounds correct. Because we might only have, like, one or two sounds that we cannot do at the moment, right? For me, it's actually the Mandarin R. I don't know how to do it. Still to this day, it sounds English. So you need to understand, even for us, we have sounds that we can't do. So when you think about and try to talk to your child, to teach them how to talk, you cannot, you 100% cannot be unhappy, you know, because they're much more unhappy than you, right? And I want to say hi to Angeline. Hi. Nice. You're watching from Philippines. Great. Anyway, so any, any time, anytime that when you're teaching your child, you cannot be frustrated because they're more frustrated than you. You cannot be sad or unhappy because they're more sad and happy to you, right? They want to talk to you, maybe. And because, you know, and whenever you. They cannot like imitate some sounds that you tell them to or say the words that you tell them to and then you get like disappointed, they think about how they feel, right? They want to be on your side. They're on your side, okay? So make sure that you give them, you give him or her the emotional support that is needed. Because it's really hard. It really is really hard. An analogy, I want to tell you what to do, right? Is to use your non dominant hand, like mine is right hand, right? If you know a speech disorder, something so, so hard to understand, right? Use your left hand to draw something to write your name, okay? That's how hard it is for the child with a speech disorder to say certain sounds. That's why, you know, kids do cry during speech therapy. You know, like kids do get angry. They get mad. I have a student who bites his hands whenever it's too hard for him, okay? So that's something that you have to think about. And another student of mine would hit her head like that whenever it's too hard. She cannot understand how to do it. That's what she would do, right? So you have to be careful. You have to understand whatever you're feeling about your child, how you feel, impatient, whatever, just put yourself in her shoes. Just think about, oh, man, if someone was this disappointed at me because I couldn't speak a different language, how would you feel? I mean, they didn't ask to be unable to speak like a normal person. It's something that they were born with, right? So how are you supposed to. Why are you being frustrated? Why are you asking so many questions? Why do you think that they can do it when obviously if they can, they would have done it already. Okay? So remember this, Remember this. And if you're watching this, later on November, I think on the 14th, I will be doing a sharing with one of my students who is an adult right now, who's on the spectrum, who used to be a nonverbal child and now she speaks very fluently for that matter. I don't know how. Okay, but she's going to share. If you're interested, just tell me. Just PM me, like private message me or send me an email if you know my email. Okay? I want to keep this as private as possible. Just within. I'm not going to try to like promote it too much. Just within my Email newsletter. If you haven't, you should join. It's agentsofspeech.com www. Remember to put a www dot. Okay. It's important anyways, if you want to listen in to like how it feels to be nonverbal, you know, on the 14th of November, we have you covered. Okay. One of my students will talk to you about that and it's really fascinating. I really didn't think about it that way until she kind of told me, you know, how it is and you know why we're talking about this topic today. And that's because one of the parents that I'm teaching had told me during last week. She was like, I'm so frustrated. I'm so. The clock is ticking. I don't know what to do. I mean, like I've tried everything. Don't answer the questions. She, you know, she, I don't know why it doesn't work. She said, and the thing is, number one is you think about whose clock is ticking. The child's clock is ticking, right? What are you so anxious about? What are you so anxious about? What is it that you want to achieve? Did your child want to achieve that? Did she tell you she wanted that? No. You can never know what a non verbal person thinks. If they can't write, they can't write it down. Draw a picture. So first of all, don't think from their shoes. Why should they talk to you? Why should that happen? Whenever you feel frustrated as a parent, just remember it's infinitely more frustrating for the child because you're pushing them to do something they can't. So now that we talked about the speech a little bit, let's talk about language. No matter if the child is on the spectrum or not, it does. There are non verbal children who are not on the spectrum and have both a speech disorder and a language disorder. Right. But we're not going to go deep dive into that. We're going to talk about language specifically. Okay. And if you've been, you know, if you've been through therapy like your child has been, and you've been like sitting in, then you will know that, you know there's expressive and receptive language, right? There's how much you can talk, expressive, how much you can like express yourself with verbal language. That's expressive language, how much you can listen and understand, right? So these things you have to, you have to remember, you know, that there's expressive and receptive, but something that maybe you haven't heard before is what we call language use, right? Pragmatics so that is something I want to talk about more today, okay? And the reason why maybe your child is still non verbal and doesn't want to talk to you is because of pragmatics. Okay? What that, what, what does pragmatics mean? Right? I can't even talk. Pragmatics means when to use language and how we use language, for what reason? Okay, so for instance, let me give you a certain. Let me give you an example. So for instance, if I tell you if I want to talk to you, right? I want to start a conversation with you. I do not look at you and then I hit you, right? Like that. That's strange. Okay? That's not pragmatically acceptable. That's the wrong language used. Like you're using the wrong thing to talk, to start talking. The real, the best way is I look at you, I wait till I get your attention and then I say, oh, hi, excuse me. Like that, right? That would be more acceptable. So you have to remember, this is what I mean by pragmatics. Using the correct, like socially acceptable way of saying something to someone that's part of pragmatics, another way, another thing to think about, another aspect to think about. Pragmatics, Pragmatics, man, it's really hard to say. Anyways, how you do it is basically like I remember now, so figures of speech. Like when you say like it's raining cats and dogs, right? That's also part of pragmatics, is using some sort of, some sort of word for another language use, right? I'm describing something like a simile or metaphor, okay? That's part of it as well. And I'm talking about really far ahead. But what I'm trying to say is if your child is lacking in pragmatics, they don't know how to use language to the way it should be. Then you know, it might be that, you know, they're non verbal because they don't know what to say. They don't know how to say it, they don't know the best way to say it. So when you see children pulling their hands, right? Pulling hands because that's the easiest thing. They don't need to look at you, they don't need to talk. It might be unacceptable and socially unacceptable, but, but they don't care. You don't, do not care. They don't understand why it's more appropriate to look at you and say something rather than pulling your hand. So in this situation, it might be actually just that they don't understand some language use or what we call how we use language pragmatics. Right? So within this there's like a bunch of like skills that you have to master, a child has to master in order to start using language. Okay. And what I'm talking to you about here is like from the 1980s, okay. Like there's some really hardcore theory. Not really hardcore, but a lot of therapists know about it anyways. Like everyone knows. So they, your child needs to know how to turn take. Right? Children who are non verbal do not really know how to turn take yet. They don't know when they should stop talking, when they should wait, when they should like anticipate someone start talking. These are all types of turn taking, right? So other than that, they also need to be able to have some sort of eye gaze. They need to look at you. They need to look at what you're doing and understand what you're trying to do and say. Right? So these are the things that you have to look out for and try to teach your child. And you might say, hey, this is super hard. How do I even do this? Well, you know, go to agentsofspeech.com five minute activity. I think that's the. Let's just go to agentsofspeech.com and then we have a five minute activity there for children who hasn't spoken yet. And there's like a PDF for you just to check it out and it's like step by step, just follow it. Yeah. And what we usually teach first is like open hand gesture. Talked about this a thousand times on this channel or on this Facebook page for that matter, if you're watching on Facebook. So that's something that you haven't heard before. Most probably from speech therapists, right? Or from any therapist. They always talk about receptive language, what age you are at, expressive language, what age your child is at. Receptively. Right. But they never talk about what if your child knows how to use language at all? Or do they understand the reason why we have to talk to each other? Right. Or do they know how to turn cake between like two people? Or do they know how to receive. Do they know how to like, you know, they actually do talk about it. Like just today, one of my clients, she said, oh, after she brought the kid to a doctor, I don't know what doctor to, to do a assessment. And the doctor said, hey, your child is. There's a lack of focus. So I don't know if, if you've heard of that before when you go to, like, therapy places. Do let me know if you do, because I don't understand what it means by there's a lack of focus. I don't understand. Is it that your child can concentrate, can be on task, don't understand the task, do not have eye gaze? What do you mean? Right. So in my mind, there's no such thing as, like, a lack of focus. Everyone has focus. It's just that they don't know how to use it, right? So this is something you need to understand. There's nothing. There's nothing new in teaching nonverbal ASD children, okay? But you have to understand other than receptive and expressive language. You have to teach a child, like, how to use language in general. All right? So, yeah, that's the language part. All right? I'm not going to talk about receptive or expressive because, you know, there's so much stuff on the Internet talking about that anyways. Okay? So how do you even. Like, how do you figure out how to teach your child that? Okay? So first of all, you have to remember, all right? Nonverbal children gets, like. They get frustrated very easily, okay? Because not being able to talk is difficult. No matter how happy they look on the outside, whenever you ask them some question that they don't understand, ask them to say something they can't, they will get frustrated for sure. Okay? I know it because I can see it from the face. So whatever you do, try to do something that's easy for them, okay? Do something that's easy enough for them to, like, understand and do it. It gives them a sense of. Makes them successful in a way, you know? Because if, you know, even for you or for me, if every time we do something it's super difficult, it's gonna set us back in terms of our confidence, right? We think that, oh, that's impossible. Why? Why try? So we give up. And this is where I get really angry, you know, with parents who say, oh, my child, I don't know, he's so lazy. Or, like, he's got a lazy mouth or lazy tongue. What's that even mean? I mean, you cannot call a child lazy. Okay? There are only two reasons why children don't do anything. All right? Does anyone remember here to put it in the comments if you remember? Okay? And what it is is that either, number one, they don't understand, they don't know that thing, right? They don't know. That's why they don't say it or they don't do it, or number two, they don't want to. Okay? So if you give something really difficult, you are giving them two reasons to not respond to you. Number one, they don't want to because it's so hard. Number because you never help them, right. Number two is because they don't know how to. So both reasons, you're giving them two reasons to not listen to you. And those are the only two reasons anyways. So it's a hundred percent that they will not do it, right? So when I hear our parent, or maybe you are one of them or maybe you're not, doesn't matter, right? When I hear someone say, or maybe a therapist say, why I don't understand why they don't understand. I don't understand that they don't. I. What they say is I don't understand why they don't understand, right? Well, obviously who gave the command? Who gave the instruction? You, right? Or the therapist or me or whoever. Not the child. Okay? So if they don't understand what we say, it's our fault, okay? Because we are the people who can adjust the level of difficulty, but can the child adjust their understanding and impossible. They only can understand so much, right? So if you're dealing with a non verbal child, you need to think. You think, okay? Is this too hard for him? Can I make something easier for her? Can I reward whatever, right? Can I make it so that they don't need to do anything and they can still learn? All right. And this is what I want to try to talk to you about for today, okay? And it's not, it's not easy topic. It's not something that, you know, a parent will just open up Facebook to watch. They see my face and I talk about, I'm saying about like, oh, nonverbal children. And you know, I don't like parents saying that children are lazy and I scroll off. Right? Doesn't matter. If you don't want to listen to that, it's fine because you know, I know it's difficult, right? That's why I've been trying to tell you about what I feel is working. Okay, so what is working for nonverbal children? Number one, start off with comprehension. Okay, stop with comprehension. What do you mean by comprehension? So using their hands to get stuff. Okay, so if you can get your child to like, oh, give me the apple, give me the orange, whatever, or give me the, give me the car like that, that's fine already. Okay? Just using their ears to show that they understand. Okay. If they cannot show that they understand with the hands, how you expect to Know if they can, how do you expect them to say it? Because you don't even know if they know it yet. Okay. Number two, when comprehending, you can also do like a serious, like a serious play routine to see if they can actually anticipate, anticipate you doing something. So language always comes from anticipation in the environment, right? I anticipate that you will give me something. That's why I will ask you. I anticipate you knowing something. That's why I will ask you. Right. I anticipate that I have a chance with this girl. That's why I'm going to go up and talk. Right. I anticipate that you have a pencil. That's why I'm going to ask you that. Right. I anticipate that I will have a good time talking to you. That's why I've decided to start a conversation. It all comes down to anticipate. First. Can. Can they, like, anticipate that you're gonna do the next step or whatever? Okay. It can be a very, very, very, very, very simple routine. It's serious, though. Like, you gotta stick to it. So one of the favorite is like, is swinging the hands. If, you know, if you've seen it before, if you're my client or, you know, you've seen it on a video somewhere on the Internet, is that I like to swing the hands. After I swing, I just stop and I look at them. And if they move their hands a little bit and then I teach the language. Right, Right. So when they move their hands a little bit, signaling to you, telling you that they want more. Right. That means they can comprehend the situation, they understand the routine. Okay. And the same as understanding that when you feed them, they open their mouth like that, Right. They can anticipate it. So when they understand that context, and then you can teach some expressive language. And why do I put it in verted commas is because expressive language, there's also. Other than talking, there's also using gestures. Right? So I've been talking a lot, a lot about gestures lately. And the reason behind it is because the use of it is actually very, very, very, very, very, very, very important. Okay. And before we even started talking as a human beings, right. We use this like gestures, like eye movements, whatever, to tell people what we want. Okay? So when words fail, when. When speech fails, we go down one step lower, which is gestures. Okay? So this is what you have to understand. Okay, so let me recap. Number one. If your child has a speech disorder. Yeah. You have to remember it's very frustrating because they know, but they can't say, right? They know, but they can't say. It's like their mouth doesn't belong to them. The more they want to do it, the less likely they will do it. And we'll talk about this in another video. If you want to, you can ask me about it. Okay. Non verbal children, whether on the, on the spectrum or not, they will have, you know, they might have some speech disorder and, and also a part of language disorder. So you have to understand that other than receptive and expressive, the stuff that we love to talk about because it's easy to understand. Oh, how much does he understand? How much can he talk? Right. The thing is, you have to understand sometimes children don't know how to use the language. And that's what we call language use or pragmatics or something. So think in that way. Think of that way. Does my child understand? So when this happens, the third point is you can teach comprehension first, all right? Even if it means just listening and seeing what they understand using their hands and their eyes. You should also teach them to comprehend some routines to see if they understand the world. Okay? If they understand the world and they can anticipate what you want, what they want, and what they're trying to achieve and what you're about to do, then it makes it 100% easier to teach language because now they know it. We just need to put the label to it, right? So an example would be instead of doing the quiz right away, you need to read through the textbook instead of doing the quiz right away for football rules or just driving rules, you need to know the context, you need to know what's going on in order to be able to answer the questions. So it's the same as when you're teaching a child. No matter how easy or hard to task is, you have to explain the task well enough for them to be okay to play and perform and go about the routine without language. Okay? So that's pretty much my rant this week. Okay? My rant this week was because that, you know, I have a parent client and if you're watching this, I know you know who you are, right? You said, you know, you don't understand why even if she understands, she won't say or do it and that she's lazy. She, you know, don't understand the times ticking. Hey, but that's very selfish of us, right? Children never asked to be non verbal. They never asked to be like, to be like on the same rules as society who Told us who told me who are you, that you have to go to university and get a job or go to school for that matter. Other people, right? So if you, if you're making your child go through that, especially when they're non verbal, you have to understand whose desire is it? If it's yours, if your want, not. Not your. Your child, then you have to think, how can you make it happen under the terms that they're happy and they're fine and they like to listen to you and they want to learn from you and they want to make it the goal as well. Because you want them, because they look up to you and they love you and they want to listen to what you say. Okay. Truly, you know, there are times that even I feel like. I feel like, oh, man, how come nothing's working? How come they're not listening to me? But deep down I know, you know, the child is trying. At least they're not crying in front of me. At least they're not smacking me and throwing stuff in their face, right? At least they're still like trying really hard. That means that they want to. They want it, they want to improve. But if you are frustrated because they are frustrated and they can't do it, it's not helping at all. Okay, I know it's difficult. I really know. And as I was saying, we're gonna have one of my students who used to be nonverbal. Now she's verbal, quite good, in fact. As I was saying, she's gonna share about her struggles as a nonverbal ASD person. Right? Now she's an adult. And we talked about it, right? Me and her, we had a chat about how parents feel and should feel about nonverbal ASD children. And she said that, you know, if. If it wasn't for her mother and all the support she had, then, you know, she might as well, I don't know, wouldn't be as good, I guess. I don't know what she said. I forgot. But you know what's better is that you listen to her, right? And it's going to be Next, next month, November 14th. Right. If you are interested, we're doing it over zoom. And you just tell me and I'll share the link with you. All right? We're not doing this for money, not for anything. We're not trying to promote it as much as we should, I think. But at the same time, we feel like when I say we, I mean me and my student, right? Because we both feel that, you know, parents are Overly worried, number one. Number two is not sensitive enough. Not thinking from the child's perspective. Number three is like they're putting the wants on the child and it's hurting the relationship. So what I really want to say is that, you know, I really truly that if you have a child who is on the spectrum and isn't talking yet, you should listen to what my student has to say. Okay? Because I don't know how many people are going to watch till now, right? Because usually after I tell the tips and tricks, everyone just leaves. But what I'm trying to say is, you know, learn. Like it's eye opening to see someone who has been through everything, you know, someone who has gone through all the therapy, done everything that they can and now finally they can speak. You know, how many people are there in this world? I think 0.1%, right? Like if you think about it very like even less than 0.1%, maybe 0.0001%. I don't know. My math sucks. But anyways, yeah, that's my rant. So do not, not, do not try to be more optimistic. Because if you aren't there for your child like that, then you know, there's no chance for your child. Because a lot of, a lot of it is from the mind being able to go through all the therapy, right? And even for me, right. Sometimes I see a child inside my mind. In the beginning when I started as a therapist, I would think, hey man, this, this child, I. I don't think he'll ever speak, man. So but now I don't know because I've seen a lot now I understand that there are kids that, who will, who will grow up to speak. Kids who will become much better. You know, they, they have ways of learning that we haven't found yet, right? And also if I think that way, I will transfer that type of energy, that type of my goals will be set lower, right? I won't be trying harder and I won't be doing my best. Because I think this is as far as this child goes. I'm writing their destiny because in my mind I think this way. So if I do that, I non verbally can't communicate to the child that my expectations are very low. But it doesn't mean even if my expectations are very high for the child, I'm going to push and you know, be upset when I don't do it. Okay? That's different. So that's the end of this. Live today. It's a hard topic, it's deep. It's very specific. That's why less people are watching. But for those who are watching today, I'm very happy that you're here. I'm sure that a lot more people will watch it through the replay. It always happens that way. And I think within like two days. This is what Facebook does all the time. You know, people start to message me, but if you're watching this right now, do message me about how your child is right now. Okay. And tell me what your struggles are and tell me if you want to join us, like next month with my student. Okay. We'll be talking much more about nonverbal children and how to deal with it, how to do it, how to treat it, how to think about it, how to manage it, how to whatever it. Okay, so that's the end for tonight. Thank you so much for joining us. And I'll see you next week, Monday with more stuff that I've learned from the past week, from the coming week, I mean. Bye. Bye.