Teaching Functional Language to Speech Delayed Children Beyond Need based Language

If your child is only talking to you when they need something and they're, they're not talking to you in other settings or contexts, then please watch this video. Okay? We're getting a lot of questions from parents asking how do we get beyond need based language? Okay, so this is when the child says, I want whatever, give me a whatever. And they only use those words. How do we get through that? So first of all, you have to identify what language functions there are. So the language functions is a cool word to say, what are they using language for? So the language that they're using right now is what we call what requesting, or what we call manding in ABA settings. But it's just basically the same thing when they want something to ask for you, right? So in the video previously last week, you can watch that, we talked about how to teach a child to have a conversation with you and it's all about the relationship and so on. Let's deep dive into that a little bit more. Okay? So language functions, there are loads. There's greeting, like having a greeting, right? Asking questions, answering questions, negation, like saying no to stuff, like protesting when you do tell them to do something and then they're like, no, please no. And they're protesting and so on, right? It might be coming from a form of like throwing a tantrum or making like noises like whatever. Other than that, there might be asking for clarification. You say something that's not correct, not too vague, and they have to ask, oh, what does that mean? Can you tell me more? Whatever it might be to manipulate you, right? It might be to like tell you, to like instruct you to do things, right? Go there, do this, give me that, give me the whatever, right? In order to like continue. Like an eighth one might be that they're using it for what we call stimming, like verbal stimming, and that they're using it for self entertainment purposes. And we've talked about this before, not only children on the spectrum do this, we all do it, right? Like singing in the shower is a form of self stimulation, right? This is a form of self entertainment using language which involves music as well, right? Okay, so the list goes on and on. I want you to think about what language functions your child has. And these language functions, they might not come out as using speech. It might be using like tantrums, gestures, eye contact, whatever, body language, right? So think about those, write it out, okay? That's the first step. Identify what language functions your child already has. Okay? Second of all, think about what New language functions that we want to teach. So you go on a simple Google search, you can ask, like speech therapy, language functions, whatever. So this is a term that we use a lot and it ties into like pragmatics, it ties into what we call language use. So it's the same with language use and language function. They come hand in hand. And most of all, like when we're teaching children, especially those on, on, on the spectrum that we're always focused on language functions first, a lot of parents, a lot of teachers will think, oh, we gotta get those sentences longer, right? Whereas when you teach those sentences so long, they only remember the whole thing. And some parents are searching online and saying, oh man, my child has gestalt language processing disorder, right? Or whatever that is. And we'll talk about it in the later video probably next week. And the thing is, that's, that's a general term. What was that even mean? Right? So what I'm trying to say is that your focus shouldn't be what your child has as a disorder. Like, oh my, they're functioning, they're processing language in chunks. Yeah, fair enough, but why? The reason why is because they don't have other language functions, right? They don't understand that, okay, that this is an apple, right? That's, that's a, the language function is for commenting, right? Whereas I want to, I want to eat, give me an apple or whatever those are for requesting. So your language cannot go beyond what they want and what context to understand. Then you have to introduce new contexts and new language functions. So you're going to ask, how am I going to do that? Well, first of all, I'm going to say the age old comment that speech therapists give to parents, which is leading with play and nurturing interest. So you're going to say, I get this. I heard, I hear this a lot on the Internet. I've seen many speech therapists. I'll say that. Right? Okay. So first of all, remember, if you're teaching a child with like teaching materials that are 2D, like cards, flashcards, whatever, then obviously the child's language function is only going to be commenting when they see certain pictures, right? Which is good, but we need to expand those, right? So I always tell parents, and also like other therapists and trainers, right, the thing is teaching them longer sentences going up this vertical, this vertical, right? Like from going cookie to going, I want cookie to like, maybe I want the red cookie or whatever. A lot of people are going up this vertical, but nobody is going horizontal, right? Meaning, can they say this in different contexts. Can they say this for different language functions? Can they say this in different environments to different people? Right? This is called generalization. Whereas, like the vertical is all about adding more words, right? Adding more. We're going to make them like talk like a full sentence, right? Whereas when they're at school, they, they become mute again, right? And that's because the work hasn't been done horizontally. Okay? So teaching new language functions is all about horizontal, right? It's all about that. That's more important than this because once you have this, you have, you have a horizontal going on. It's very easy for them to now like, generalize and learn more because they understand more contexts and they can go furthermore, right? Okay, so let me give me an example. Some children, they, you need to learn nurture with play and nurture interest. It doesn't need to be play only. It could be that your child loves watching you make coffee. So therefore you start to teach them to use some language functions during of that and might not be even using speech, right? So if they want you to continue with the next step, they might tap you, they might signal you with a point, they might tell you with, with a sound or whatever to do the next step, right? Or that you do something wrong during a step and they have to correct you, maybe with speech, maybe with whatever, right? With a gesture, it's like, no, that's wrong. Use that one instead, right? You might be putting the coffee beans and in the wrong thing, they're like, ah, what's going on? Right? So they have to tell you what to do in order to continue watching you making that coffee, right? So always think when you're teaching a child, what language function are you teaching and at what context to what means, right? So for instance, let me give you a very quick breakdown. They will say, I want cookie, right? The language function is to request when the context is that they see a cookie jar in front of you, right? That's, that's the context. That's the easiest one, right? Whereas if we're talking about like a child that we coached before, she used to not like to interact with a mom, right? So we taught her to start like lead with her interest, which is to. She liked to watch a lot of toy videos, toy review videos on YouTube. So we're gonna teach her to start talking in like a script, right? And the language function is to present the, the toys, right? On, on video camera, right? And the means is so that she can see herself review some toys on YouTube. So we upload it afterwards, right? So think about this. What was the language function? What's the context? Right? Once you have the context that they like and aligned with the language function, then they will try to learn, okay? Whereas when a lot of times, like we're trying to push that kid to do something, it's very difficult. Okay? So let me tell you something really far off, a really far off example. So I've been reading about when I was a masters and I was reading about like language, right? So there's, there's this theory going on called universal grammar, right, By Chomsky, right? Might be getting this wrong. I'm not a linguist, but anyways, and that I, we're going to talk about this in a later video about like learning universal grammar and what this theory is and why this goes with bilingual, trilingual and why different languages doesn't matter about child's language acquisition, so on, so forth. So basically there's another linguist who wanted to go into tribes and see if there was this universal grammar to take a look at. Oh, do people not in the modern society, does language come naturally to human beings, right? Even signal to each other? There's a lot of just like pushing people around and stuff, maybe some eye contact, whatever. But there wasn't any spoken language, right? And then up until then, he, he was thinking about, dude, this is not going to work. It doesn't matter. I guess like language isn't innate in humans and so on. And then he went hunting with those guys. So those people start to communicate with, with each other, okay. And what they were doing, they were like, I, I forgot the whole story. But basically they were talking in a way with gestures and like clicks and so on and in, in a way that it won't startle the animals. And they were communicating, making formations and thinking about how to attack their, their prey. So this led to this linguist to think about, okay, so this language only emerges when context has happen, right? When there's a cultural need, when the, the specific context that human need to interact with each other. So let's bring this crazy example back to how to teach children, right? So how, how does this relate? So if you're right now, your relationship with the kid is that they always want to get stuff from you, then their language functions are always going to be like that. Their interaction will always be like that. So therefore you have to teach them new things, right? You have to teach them new things to learn new words and newer language functions. Okay? So this happens in every part of our, of our lives. Right. When we move to a different country, we learn new words that aren't inside of our understanding because the culture is different, the context is different. We don't need those words in our country or in our city, right? And this happens a lot with newer technology as well. When you're watching this on your YouTube. YouTube is a new word, right? So like swiping up, swiping down is new stuff and you have to learn those as well. And language comes after, after those, those communication intent comes. So you have to remember that you have to build those interests, you have to lead with play, you have to think about what interests your kid and go from there and go horizontal and teach what language functions you can do here, right? And so I want you to do that analysis. Think about what they are doing right now, right? What language functions they have right now that may or may not be accompanied by speech. And then think about how to change those into speech. Giving them a word, giving them a language for what they're expressing already, non verbally, all right? And other than that, go horizontal and think, oh, how can I expand different language functions? And this comes from context. And the biggest thing is that a lot of parents, a lot of trainers, teachers and so on, they're always so fixated on teaching the language, right? And children can smell F so far away when you're trying to teach them something and it's hard for them, they're going to run away, they're going to like, ah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm not in for this. But whereas if you like change your perspective and to teaching the context first, teaching to play first, teaching them why they have to communicate with you first, that'll be so much easier because then you've created interest, you've created a need for them, right? It might not have come from them. It's basic psychology. You don't want to be sold, right? You want to want to be sold to. You want to see why you need that thingy, right? When you see a new iPhone, you, you don't want a salesperson saying, oh, you need this, whatever. They show you the benefits, they show you the features and you're like, you're like, oh my God, it's so nice. I want to do it. So it's this, I want to buy it, right? So it's the same thing with children. They can smell it so far away that you want them to do something, right? And the same as those salespeople who come up to you with a clipboard, right? Whereas if you. If you show them, okay, this is the way. There's no commitment. You can do whatever you want. I'll show you something cool. This is how you make coffee. This is how you make, you know, like a French toast. This is how whatever you can. This is how you vacuum the floor. This is how you clean up the Dyson machine. Whatever. This is how. Whatever, whatever that interests them, okay? And then they're like, wow, it's so cool. And you start doing wrong things so that they can, like, be acting stupid so that they need to correct you or that you use the wrong tools and they have to, like, need help from you, whatever. And so it's all about building the context, all about leading with plan play, nurturing the interest. And then you can start going into functional language, right? Functional language means that there's a function towards it. So build those functions. All right, so if you understand enough of this video, then that's great. Okay? If you need more help, put it in the comment section and I'll be sure to make other videos to help you out. Okay? So that's it for today. And also, if you haven't, please go to agents of Speech.com checklist to grab a full list of tools and toys that we recommend you to get when you start home therapy. All right, so that's it for today. I'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.