Ming, a speech therapist, shares strategies for helping autistic and speech-delayed children develop speech. The focus is on natural communication methods that reduce pressure on the child rather than forced practice.
Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we want to talk about the tips for teaching autistic children to start speaking. Okay? So teaching children or speech delayed language delayed children how to talk. There are some fundamental basic principles that work across, and we will talk about those here. Okay? And this is what's been working for me inside the clinic and teaching parents over on the Internet, right? So first of all, I want to talk about speaking without expectation. And this is especially true in Asia where, you know, I'm working, right? So when we want a child to talk, we usually push them. Okay? What happens, I see a lot is that. Show. Show Mr. Ming how to say this one. Say whatever. First you say it. Come on, I know you can do it. Say whatever. Say whatever. And then it's just keeps on going until the child does something like whatever. Just stop it, you know? So when I see it, I feel like, huh, I think that's not a true ability. I think that's like a forced. Like he doesn't want to do it, but you forced them to do it, right? So that I cannot count as, like, a real attempt, first of all. Second of all is like, parents will say, see, he's so lazy, or she's so lazy. I have to push him like six times until he really tries. And then in my heart, I'm like, that's not really 100% him. His, like, his true ability, maybe he can do it really well, right? So what can you do right? For a child that doesn't make sense because all you're doing is trying to get him to talk this one phrase or one word, which, by the way, if he knew how to do it, he would have been doing it already. There are never children who are too lazy. There are children who cannot do it and don't know why they should do it. Okay? So you need to solve these two problems. All right? So the best advice I can give you is to speak as if there's no expectation. You don't want him to repeat after you. You just say and model the language that you want him to do. And most of the time, that's one word at a time. If you're stuck at a child not speaking yet, right? So it's stressful. It creates strain on your relationship with your kid. If every time you force them or push them to, like, not really force, right? But you keep on pushing him to talk, and it's like someone pushing you to do something you're really uncomfortable with, you're not good at then of course, the relationship with the person who's doing that to you isn't gonna be great. Children don't understand that when you're doing that to them, it's good for them. They don't understand that. So cut everyone some slack, Cut yourself some slack and start talking and modeling language as if you have no expectation. But if you do want your child to repeat after you and learn a word, you should use a reward. Okay? Or else you're asking them to work for free, you know, And a lot of people say that's not natural, that's not whatever. Well, you know, like when we talk to each other, we get rewarded by, like, your reactions, by interesting things that you might say back to me. So in the long run, that's how we start communicating, is that we get reward from talking to each other. But in the beginning, when they don't know how to, you got to present some external reward in order to let them, like, start talking to you. So if you want to know what other, like, rewards you can use, you can use routines. It doesn't need to be food or snacks or whatever. It can be like a play routine that's, like, very natural. And you can check out in our channel, on our channel to see what other, like, routines we've been talking about, especially the play one, so you can look at the playlist. Okay? So other than that, you should also use fewer questions and quizzing. All right? We talk a lot about this in agents of speech. When you prompt a child with a question, it's nearly impossible to get rid of that question. That's why you see a lot of this passiveness in children is like when parents ask, what do you want? And then they will talk, right? They will never talk by themselves. So fewer of these questions will actually make a child understand. What's more natural is that you, you give the, the language model, which is just by saying it without any, like, intention of them answering your questions or like, quizzing or whatever, then they will know, oh, I just need to say the word and then I'll get what I want. Or I'll just say the word and then you will respond to my words, right? Which might be you smiling, you laughing, you're making a joke out of it, you increasing the word and sentence length, so on, right? It needs to be natural and more than often, more than more, not than often. You can use gestures as a way to cue speech, which is a lot more like, natural and sustainable and fate away able than using question. If words and sounds are too hard right now you can settle for something easier. And this may include like AAC, like alternative augmentative communication. There we got it. Like PECs, like picture exchange Communication system. Right. Using sign language, gestures, whatever. Okay. These are ways that you can as a, as a middle ground towards speech. All right. We're not going to stay there forever, but at least they get their communication needs met and they learn how to initiate communication with you through these methods. Right. So once you have these, you can then move on to like sounds. Okay. What you should do is that if the word is too difficult for the child, you can cut off some of the sounds inside of a word. Like, for instance, water might be too hard. You can start with or whatever. So you need to find a way that they are comfortable with that and slowly increase the difficulty until you get the whole word. Okay. And always reminding them of the word, the correct form. Like if they say for water, you say, oh, yes, water. That's fine. Okay. You don't need them to repeat after you because it's too hard. Okay. So slowly you can do that. And that's all I wanted to share in this video. If you haven't, you should go to agents of Speech.com checklist for list of tools and toys that will help you and your child start home therapy. Okay. So that's it. Hopefully I'll see you in the next video soon. Bye.
