Speech Delay & Social Skills - Why it's not Speech Delay | www.agentsofspeech.com/micro

Hey, good after. No, not good afternoon. Good evening, guys. This is Ming from agentsofspeech.com today we're covering social skills. Okay? And the reason why we're doing this yet again is because a lot of parents are asking. They're like, oh, what should I do? My kid doesn't talk to anyone, doesn't play, you know, socially aloof, aloft, however you pronounce that. And a lot of times they, you know, play by themselves or don't play at all. Okay, so the points we're going to cover today are four. Okay? And number one is I'm reading off, as you can see. Number one is I posted in the comments as well, so you can take a look. Number one is parents first and then peers. I'll explain later on. Okay. Number two is play skills and routines second. All right. Number three is mediated group sessions are useful. In fact, they're very useful. And number four is why a language gap means may affect social skills, which is very obvious. But I'm going to tell. I'm going to deep dive a little into the reasons why. Right. And you know, at any time, if you have any questions, put in the comment section. We'll cover the Q A at the end of this video as more people join towards the end. Anyways, so before we dive into the points, also I want to say if you are not inside that microcourse, you should be. It's a micro course for parents and you watch it through online, online platform, our website, agents of speech.com and you basically get pretty much all the answers you need that you might have already. Okay. And right now it's a course for practically, it's best for children who are not using words but are capable of saying, like using sounds and words. Okay. It's also very good for children who are using like one word inconsistently. You know, one or two words inconsistently. That's very good as well. Okay, so let's deep dive into the points. I don't want to like, talk about this is not the point of this today's video not to talk about the course. Okay? So number one, parents first and then peers. So developmentally, children will learn how to socialize with adults first and then kids. All right, and why do we say that? It's because up till until like this decade, all right, children only go to school. And by kindergarten when I was a kid, I only start. I did go to preschool. All right. But that was pretty forward for my time. Nowadays, everyone goes to preschool at around 2. Okay. But back in the day, really, a lot of kids skip preschool and go to kindergarten at three. Okay. So up till three, they haven't really been in a setting where they have to see a lot of children until they're three. So nowadays this starts at around two years old. Okay. But developmentally speaking, children should hang out with adults around, like, 100% more of the time than they would with, like, other children, unless they have siblings, of course. So what does that tell you? That tells you that for any skill, language, play, whatever, social skills, a child must be able to do it with you first before being able to do it with other children. Okay? And a lot of times, children take a long time, a long time to get used to a social setting, such as in a kindergarten. Okay, and we'll talk about this in, like, point three. Okay? Usually it takes, like, two months, up to three sometimes to really get a kid really into. Really into the whole situation of being in a room with a bunch of stranger kids. Okay, so that's first. Okay? So what I'm trying to say here is, as a parent, you must be able to play with your kid, or else they won't know how to socialize as well as they should. All right? At the end of the day. At the end of the day, a child will not be able to learn something without exposure to it. They wouldn't know. So you need to be the person to bring it into their lives, especially if they are delay already. Okay, so what can you do at home? Okay, this is point number two we're getting into. All right, so point number two, play skills and routines. Second meaning, first of all, you need to be able to play with your kids and stuff, right? You need to be, like, putting an effort to be with them and play with them and whatever. And afterwards, the second thing you want to do is to target some play skills and some routines. Okay? We also have a few videos about, like, play skills and routines. But I'm gonna like to save you time. I'm just gonna tell you a bunch that I like in this video. Okay? So first of all, play skills, if you've seen any YouTube videos or, you know, any. If you've seen a pediatric speech therapist work before, a lot of times, if your child is around 2 to 3, they're on the floor, they're on a mat, they're on, like, you know, a soft surface where they're, like, rolling a ball together and whatnot. And by the looks of it, you might think, hey, they're not doing a lot of teaching. Not a lot of training, not a lot of therapy. And especially parents from Asia would think, hey, what's going on? What's going on here? I paid money. How come nothing's happening? You're just playing with my kid. Yeah, that happens a lot. And when what the therapist is doing here is actually developing some routines so that he, he or she, obviously more she's than he. But anyways, can develop a routine and later on use it for a language, like to, to target language. Okay. And we've said this multiple times in this like channel, Facebook group, Facebook page, whatever, that having some routines are very, very, very important. Okay, so what kind of routines can you target? So if, as I said, if you've been inside a therapy room for like two to three year olds, the smaller kids, you see a lot of like rolling cars, rolling balls, you know, blowing bubbles. These are very, very easy routines you can do at home, right. You also see a lot of building blocks. You know, what's that called? You know those, that hammer stuff that you hit the. I don't know what that thing is that block and then you hit it and it goes down and you know, ball rolling, that thing. Car slides. You know what else? Like some, what we call, means end or some people call it cause effect toys where you press a button and the light and sound comes off and stuff. So these are all routines, right? Because you do something over and over again and you know how, how and when it happens. So for instance, for the ball, you roll to the kid, the kid's going to roll back to you because he knows that it's fun, right? It becomes a routine. I give it to you, you give it back to me. Okay? Same with the car, right. Some cars you might need like to wind it back down. Like wind it back, go, go, go, go, go. And then you let go. It runs really fast, right? It goes really fast, right. That's also routine because, you know, you do it over, over, over and over again. And afterwards, what you're doing here is that the routine develops some knowledge about how to play a certain toy. Number one. Number two is you're developing some play skills. Right? The ability to anticipate what's going to happen next is very important. Yeah. So all these things combined. All these things combined, you will be actually develop a lot of cognitive skills and play skills and some research. Like back in the day, I don't know about now, okay. When I was still studying my like master's degree. Usually what the supervisors say. Okay, I'm just saying that play skills are linked to cognitive abilities. Right. So from a personal standpoint, I'm not going to say anything about that because, you know, my opinion is zero to nothing about, you know, play skills and cognitive skills. But if you think about that, developing play skills may, okay, big quotation marks, may improve certain cognitive functions, I would think. Or it's actually the other way around. Who knows? Okay. But play skills are still very, very, very important. And the reason why once you have play, you have context to teach language. Okay. You can't just suddenly run up to your kid and tell them to say words or copy sounds, because if you do that, then what are they going to anchor that sound onto? Like, how they going to know that this thing is a microphone? Right. If they don't see a microphone and all they do is like, repeat the word microphone. Okay, I see this. A lot of parents trying to ask a child to repeat stuff, which is a fair way to teach. I think that's how we all learn. But at the same time, if a kid doesn't understand the context, then it becomes very difficult. Okay, let me give you an example. All right, So a parent went through our micro course, and then inside we have like a section about teaching with flashcards. Right. So first of all, just to give you a very basic overview is that we tell the parent to teach flashcards in a way that it's comprehension first, meaning to comprehend the activity. Teach them that they have to give you the card instead of saying the words out loud. Right? So she didn't do that step. And so what happened was that when she said, oh, give me, for instance, it might be flashcards of animals, and she was like, give me cats. And then the kid just kind of stared at cat and said, cat, cat, cat, but never took it. Right. So she didn't understand the context of. And the task wasn't explained nicely through, like, words and demonstration. Right. So play. Playing with toys needs a lot of demonstration and a lot of showing and telling and more so in showing to do. All right, so once you have those play and routines set up, the next step is that you can do use the languages inside. And then you might ask me, so how does this work with like socialing? Right. Socializing? Well, it's very like, if you think about all skills, okay, all skills, you can do it with you. That means later on, if there's another kid and it's the same toy, they will be able to. They might be able to actually play the same toy in the same way with another person, hopefully appear like someone of your child's. Age, right. So you need to equip him with skills in order he can use it outside, or else he won't even do it. All right, let me give you an example. If you, like, I don't know, back in school, maybe like, there was like, the most popular sport was like football, let's say, or soccer, if you're in America. But then, but then you don't know how to play it. You don't know the rules. You don't know, like, you never tried to, like, practice it before when you were young, right? So at the end of the day, when you go to school, you wouldn't like, even if there was a football club, you wouldn't want to join because you, you know, even though there's a lot of socializing going on, you wouldn't want to go because you don't know how to do it. So at the end of the day, you feel left out because you don't know how to like. I mean, you must be able to relate to this because back in the day from. In my school, I think one of the times it was the yo yo thing. Like, everyone has gone through a yo yo phase, right? So if you know, if no one knows how to play a yo yo, right, Then you wouldn't want to socialize. That's just like that. If everyone's popular who's doing that and you don't have it and you don't know how to do it, then you won't do it because you don't feel adequate in doing it. And children who are delayed don't think that they're like, they don't understand this kind of stuff. They see someone doing something that they don't understand, they will shy away. That's why most of the time when you talk, they don't really respond because they don't know what you're talking about. About. Okay, so. Right. So you have to equip the skills at home first before taking them out to socialize. The more competent they are, the more confident they will be easily. All right. As for anyone, whether they are speaking or not. Yeah. It doesn't matter if they speak a language or not. The more competent they become at something, the more confident they will be. All right, that. That's true for everyone. Everyone, including me and you. All right, so let's talk about number three. Number three is about, like, group sessions. So I say that mediated group sessions are useful. What I mean by mediated, that means someone needs to look after the group. Okay. And that someone might be you might be a therapist, might be a teacher, might be a caregiver, whoever. Doesn't matter. All right? And why are they useful is because once they learn, like, certain play skills and routines, the next step is to use it in a different social setting, all right? And this social setting, usually what happens is that they get scared, they get stressed out, and they don't know how to use it out, so they need someone to prompt them. Okay? So in my practice, sometimes I do some group activities. I group people, children who are around the same level in terms of language, and I introduce toys that they have all played before, like games that they have all played before. And the only goal here is for them to use it in a different setting, all right? Or else all the skills that they learned will still be inside that the clinic room or inside your house, right? It doesn't matter if you sing like Maya Carey, but you can only do it in the shower. If you can't sing on stage, then what's the point? Only you can hear it. And same for your child. Only he can, like, be entertained at home by himself. So what you want to do if. If you can, is that during COVID you guys got to be really careful, okay, Is that you can ask for play dates, right? And then you can mediate the whole play session, you know, with the other mother or with the other parent, okay? And why I'm telling you to do this is because if they have you around, it's much. They feel much safer. Okay? Excuse me. So you might ask, what if I'm, like, they are crying? Like, a lot. Like, there's a lot of crying. So mediated group sessions. Group sessions in general, you should do it with children who are already kind of familiar with each other, okay. Preferably, like a family friend or they've seen them before, and preferably someone who is around their. Around their skill level, but not a lot. You know, it doesn't matter that much about, like, their skill level, but it needs to be around the same. And to be honest, children around, like, two to four, not five or six, but two to four, they. Their skill levels wouldn't be, like, that drastically apart if they are in need of some sort of, like, speech and language therapy. All right, so the next one, by the way, you guys, you can drop your comments and questions down below already. I'm gonna start looking at them soon. So number four, is that why a language gap may affect social skills, which is very, very obvious. Right. If I don't understand a certain language, let's say German and I go to Germany in a beer hall, and they don't. All don't speak English or Chinese or, you know, that's the two that I can actually speak fluently. Then it's obvious that I won't talk a lot that night or, you know, there's nothing much I can do, right? Because it's impossible for me to communicate. So a language gap between your child or a child doesn't need to be yours and their peers who are typically developing. What's going to happen is that they can sense that kind of, like, disparity, like, between their language skills. And what will happen is that they will go to somewhere inside their safe, like their safe zone, their comfort zone. Everyone does that, you know, like, really everyone does that. So when things get too intimidating, they retreat, all right? And they start doing stuff. And I have a student who does it a lot whenever things get very stressful. I can name a few. I can name a few of their behaviors. Number one is that you see children, they will start biting their hands, right? They will start, like, verbally stimming. They will start playing with their hands. You know, they will start standing at the corner. They will, you know, have some distancing between other children and whatnot. So a language gap or, you know, a stressful situation. The language gap creates a stressful situation because there's nothing they can do and no one's helping them. All right? So when that happens, it affects social skills. So what should you do now? Is that social. Like, this is the last part and also a very, very strong summary of, like, what I'm about to say, okay? This whole topic here about social skills is that social skills might not be than the thing that you should be working on right now, okay? What you should be working on right now is like, does your child listen to you? Does your child. Is your child able to play with you? At the very least, because, you know, parents first, and then you try to do peers, right? And then at the same time is. Is his language level, his language competency, like, increasing every day, you know, Then that's something you need to do first. Teach language. Teach how to communicate better, and then think about socialization, okay? Because there's a lot of things that goes into it, all right? And other than language, you need to, like, you really need to think about behavior, all right? Behavior is very important. So do you have a system, a behavioral system, especially children on the autism spectrum. Do you have, like, a system for you to, like, manage your child's behavior? Right? Do you have that in place. Do you know what to do when they, like, have a tantrum, like a meltdown or whatever? Because, you know, if you're having a group activity, if you're around helping out, then, you know, you need to know how to do it. And if you, if you know how to deal with the child during these meltdowns, you can tell the teachers in the kindergarten. All right, I just received an email from a parent as well. And you know, a lot of times when they go to kindergarten, it's not only like that parent who sent me the email. There's a lot of parents who say, who tell me, you know, the teachers cannot handle that kind of, like, behavior in that social setting, which is the kindergarten. And they get sent home, they get called, and then they're like, oh, please come and pick up your kid. All right? And I've actually been there before. I've a parent of mine, not of mine, that being crazy. A client of mine told me that, oh, I have to pick up my son right now. Is it possible for me to talk and have a meeting with the school and talk about, like, how to do stuff? So I went to the school, I told them, hey, how about like, you got to do these systems in place, right? Because the kid was like, basically not going in the line, you know, treating other kids as zoo animals, saying, hey, Mr. Ming, come look at that, look at the children. Like that. And I'm like, hey, you're part of the children, man. You gotta, you know, and we're obviously talking about like a child with like, significant, like, like good language. It's just that he's a little behind and also that he's not able to like, fit in, fit in, in the setting because it was not structured enough. All right? So this is something you have to really keep in mind, all right? Social skills might not be the first thing. In fact, it shouldn't be the first thing that you're trying, you're trying to teach at home at the very least, because you don't really have a lot of resources. Because social, socializing requires other people, all right? Because other people to generalize that skill. All right? Doesn't matter if he can do it with you, which is the first part. Do you have other people to, like, generalize? Meaning, do you have other people to like, show that your child can do the same thing with other people? Okay, that's important. That's why sometimes for me, when parents come to me because I'm a one man show on my band or whatever, it's very Difficult for me to teach a lot of socialing. So I need to like recruit other kids and put them in one session together. And actually is very tiring for me as an actual fact, because a lot of stuff is going on, a lot of behaviors going on. So be prepared as a parent that during these times and during these Covid times. Right. Be careful if you're hosting people over. I don't want to suggest something and like create a whole. The spread of a virus or something. I really don't want that. But what I'm trying to say is that during these times in Covid, social skills may not be the best thing to target because you can't see anyone. There's no point in doing social skills yet anyways because you don't have people to actually practice with. All right, so with that said, what you should do is to practice language skills, managing behavior. You know, these two things are the key factors to how fast your child can acquire any skill that you try, you're trying to teach him or her at home. All right, so the best step you can do right now, if you're not already, you should join our micro course at agents of speech.com micro right now, as I am speaking, we have around 300, 400 something. Wait, let me check. 400 something parents inside the micro course. We also have a different Facebook group of which we're going into like a deep Q and A session every month. You know, and you know, the questions there are much, much, much more detailed because I'm there to help. And then, you know, parents can also ask after they've watched everything. So it's actually very, very, very informative for people. For these Q and A calls would be very, very important informative because I basically tell them, okay, so I just checked the mic, the micro course. Right now we have 427 members who are all parents, by the way. So if you guys want to join, you should go check out that link. All right. And with that all said, thank you very much for tuning in today. I know that this topic might not be as easy to understand and relate. And at the end of the day, the whole video summarizes that. Don't do it right now. Yeah, don't do it right now because there's a lot more to do. Most probably at home if it's one on one with like you and your child or like two, one. One with, you know, mom and dad together and the kid or even three with the. With the helper over there. Right. So there's a lot more you can do without dealing with social skills just yet. Okay. There is a time and place for that. And hopefully later on when Covid finally decides to stop, then, you know, you can think about that again. All right, so I see that there's not many questions. In fact, I don't think there are any at this moment in time. But you can still comment down below with your questions, and I'll be sure to take a look and answer them. All right, so thank you for tuning in for this live video today, tonight. And if you're inside a micro course, I see you on Wednesday inside the other Facebook group for a live Q and A. And you can drop those questions there. All right, See you guys. And stay safe. It's so hard to say stay safe and good night. Goodbye.