Why Children Speak 1 Word at a Time? | www.agentsofspeech.com/word-combiners-webinar

Hello, welcome. Today we're starting a little earlier and the reason is because there's that we need time for people to pick up the live and come on and everything. So I'm just putting it out there and we're gonna start five minutes earlier. And during this five minutes, I'm just going to talk about what this new thing I'm doing. So a lot of parents are asking a lot. As in 50 plus, actually, parents are asking, okay, so I've taken the micro course, I've done, I've watched a lot of videos. How do I take the child to like, start to combine words and whatnot? So we are having a free private class. I think it's better if we put it off of this live and then put it indoors inside of like, not indoors, but you know, you know what I mean? Like inside, like closed doors inside. Inside of a zoom meeting. So you can go there by go. You can sign up by going to agents of speech.comwebinars-combiners-webinar. Okay, it's a mouthful, but, you know, the, the link is right up there. You can take a look and you can join there. All right? It's totally free. You can join, you can take a look. We go through in more detail with like, I plan a little bit more with slides and I'll tell you what to do. Okay? So if you are interested and your child can speak more than one word. Actually, no. If your child is using one words already, then you can join, okay? Otherwise, if your child hasn't been using words yet, don't join. That's not for you. The micro course is your best bet. And let's start. Let's begin. Let's talk about our topic today, which is why children speak one word at a time. Okay? And there are a few reasons. So reason number one is this, all right, is that children do not have the appropriate vocabulary. Okay? So if they speak one word at a time, okay, then the problem really is they don't have enough word knowledge to put sentences like words into phrases. All right? And what this is, what this is, is that there's a lot of studies, and I've said this multiple times, I know there are people who, who can speak 50 words and above, then they're supposed to be able to put words together. All right, so 50 words, right? I, I, I, I'm pretty sure that there are studies that talk about 100 or 200 or 150 or 500 even, but that's besides the point. Okay? The biggest problem why children Speak one word at a time is because they don't have the appropriate vocab. That's why they're unable to link what they. What they're seeing, what they know with the words that they have. Okay. That's why they're picking out the keywords that they're able to. To say. Right. That's why they're having trouble. Okay. And how do we tackle that? Basically, is to teach more vocab. But as you know, vocab, like, learning a vocab is one thing. Using the vocab is another thing. So you actually need a place where children can. Or people in general. If you learn something, you have to have a place where you can generalize what you know into something that you can use every day. All right? And that's something that is very important. Sorry, my cat's a little distracting. So you can. The first reason is the vocab. So what you can do is to teach more vocab. So you're going to ask me, you're going to ask me, how am I going to teach vocab? Well, you know, you can use flashcards. Okay. You can use toys, you can use a lot of things. But you need to pinpoint what's missing within their vocabulary. Okay. Most of the time, what children are very good at are nouns. They're able to label a lot of things because a lot of therapy out there, or, you know, in general, if you go to kindergarten, what do you see? Like, what are the names of the planet, you know, what names of the animals? So on. These are all labeling. Okay? So they don't have a big problem with, you know, knowing their numbers, knowing the alphabets, because it's always repeated. It's in songs, it's in whatever is in here, and it's in there. So it doesn't matter for them. Noun is fine, but what's lacking a lot of times are the verbs and also the adjectives. Okay. And not the places. Actually, that's also nouns. Right. So the verbs and the adjectives are weaker. Okay. The reason why verbs are weaker is because no one really takes a lot of time to teach them. They think it's something that is. I don't know. It just never occurred to me that it was inside of a curriculum, especially for, like, early intervention or actually in early intervention. Yes, but not in, you know, preschool. Preschool talks about, like, ABCs, the numbers, the alphabets, the songs, which are all good and stuff. But at the same time, verbs are more abstract. They require more knowledge about a certain activity. And they're able to, you know, they're able to use those verbs on a daily basis and use, use the verbs to describe what's happening and so on, right? So given what I said, right, if your child has enough verbs, as Nabil says here, knows nearly 25, right? Knows 25 verbs, that's a lot. But can they use it? Can they use it? Right? So the next reason about why, like reason number two, why your child is stuck with one word at a time is because no one really taught them to use it in different ways. Okay? So there are a few ways to teach. There are loads, actually. There's many ways to teach, but most of the time what parents or therapists will do is to teach with like plan pictures and reading and books and so on, right? So what are verbs? Right? What are verbs are movements, motion, right? So if you only teach, only teach. I'm say only, okay? With flashcards or, you know, pictures or still images. What's that? What does that mean? That means that your child needs to, it goes to another, another abstraction. Like it goes, it even becomes more abstract. Okay? So you know how, you know, if you know Chinese, you know what I'm saying? There's a lot of abstraction about, like how the word is put together and there's a verb and so on. But what I'm talking about here is that you are talking about a verb that is supposed to be in motion, right? In motion. For instance, a child who is autistic, okay, as Nabil is saying, right? High functioning autism. Even to this day, if I ask some of my ASD students who are around like primary school secondary, if I ask what's happening in the picture, let's say someone is using the phone, they're going to say the girl is sitting, right? And the problem there is that there are just so many things that are not important enough for the like for autistic mind to pick up because to them, as very matter of fact, they cannot really understand. What do you want me to say? Is it like sitting or like pressing or using or whatever, Right? But to teach a verb, you need to teach the actual, you know, the actual motion of it. So what you do is that you teach through, you teach through using toys and you also teach with act out, okay? You act out and there's only one thing that's happening, right? So if you isolate that verb and then use it as Nabil talk about noun plus a verb. That's excellent. And then you're teaching her that, right? Noun plus a verb, like for Instance, if I'm asking what's happening, it should be like, Ming talking or Ming talk or something, right? If I'm doing this, then it was Ming drink, right? So. So you need to understand. Your child needs to be able to say it during act out or using toys or, you know, in action, okay? Not just only with the pictures, because the pictures aren't a good way to generalize, number one. Number two, it's more abstract, and they might not understand the full meaning of the verb, okay? That's why they cannot use it in real life. All right? So that's one. Number three reason is that, okay, maybe you've done all of this stuff. The problem is that you haven't covered enough structures. We've talked about structures before, like subject, verb, object. The verb is always the most important. Why I'm talking about it all the time is because when we call a predicate, right, we call it a verb predicate in a linguistic term. Okay, what does that mean? That means after the subject, the whole thing is a verb phrase. The whole thing is a verb phrase. Meaning if I say the girl is eating a hot dog, right? What's the subject? The subject is the girl. But the verb phrase, which is the predicate, is actually eating a hot dog. The whole thing. The whole thing. That's why the verb is to me. Okay? I don't know. Maybe some linguists, Linguists out there or other speech therapists who have paid more attention during, you know, their linguistic classes will. Will say something like, say, hey, Ming, you're wrong or something, which I'm fine with being wrong. I don't mind. It's just that I. I believe, okay? And I've seen it multiple times that without a verb, there's not a glue in between the subject and the object or a glue between, like, the subject to something else. All right, so once your child understands how to use a subject for a verb, okay. Or a noun or verb, noun plus a verb, then the next thing is to try in different ways. Like, can they do a verb plus object, like vo Structure? Yeah. So instead of just like boy jump, which is subject plus a verb, right. Can they do, like, kickball or roll ball or throw, Whatever. Throw, throw ball, throw, Frisbee, whatever. Like, can they do like that? Can they do sv. Vo and then turn it into svo, Something like that, Right? So once you can do that, the next thing you can do is actually to increase not just the number of words, because once you get to SEO, right? Is pretty already. It's actually very functional. If you think about how you use language, if you're talking to someone that you don't need to give a presentation like I am right now, a very simple svo and pauses in between are actually quite functional and enough to communicate. You see, all the time with children, they pause and they don't use full sentences when they're around, like two to three and you still understand what they're saying. Right. So given. Given that, what I've said here. Okay, what you need to do next is to generalize it. Generalize it. Okay. What does generalization mean? So there are a lot of children on the spectrum, or not that they know how to use certain sentences during, like an act out or play or like flashcards, pictures, storybooks, whatever. But then when they are outside, they can't use it. Right. Or they're inside of a new toy and they cannot talk. Right. Or they're playing with peers and they can't use the language that they know, or. I don't know, just. You need to generalize across different. What's that called? Across different scenarios. All right? It doesn't matter, at least for me, that I can sit here and talk to you like this as if it's like one on one. Okay. Some people cannot do it. And the reason is because they cannot generalize their skill to actually talking to a general public. Yeah. So given that, what I'm saying is that anyone can do public speaking, right? Anyone can talk about something that they like for a long period of time over a beer or something. But if you're on stage, you get stage fright. And same for children. You know, they can do a lot of stuff. They can talk and talk and talk to you a lot here, inside of a room, inside of the clinic room. And at the end of the day, if they cannot generalize that skill to something else, useless. All right? Same as a singer, you know, you could be, I don't know, Adele. You know, you could be Adele. You could sing Lovely at home. But, you know, once you're out there on the streets or whatever, you can't sing, then it's useless. So that's why it doesn't matter how deep, how well you're doing when you're, like, using pictures or whatnot. And then once they go out, they cannot. So parents will say, say to me, hey, they can do this here, they can do that here. It doesn't matter. It depends on, have you tried teaching them across different environments? And this is a weak point for children who are on the spectrum as well, especially on the spectrum. Because they only think that this word or this sentence are only to be said during these special conditions, such as in therapy. Right. So this is what happens a lot. Like, you see, parents will get report cards from therapists and then they will say like, hey, so and so and so is able to speak in like, more whatever sentence. And I wrote a lot of those reports as well. And then the. The parent will see it and then they're going to be like, huh, they did so well today. Is this possible? Are they, like, trying to cheat me money or something? As long as you're inside of the clinic room, then you know, you would know everything. And that's what I do anyways. So given what I said, right, you need to. You need to teach in a very systematic way and then also systematically make sure that can. They can do it in different state and different environments and different contexts and so on. That's very, very important. Okay. And to do this isn't hard. Isn't hard. But you need to do it systematically. All right. And you need to give it enough time. So we're going to talk about it more inside of our private class. Or you may call a webinar. It's agents of speech.com wordcombinerswebinar with dashes in between. The link is here, or you can click up there in the title and description below as well. There is the link. Sign up with a email and then we'll be on a zoom call instead. Because, you know, I don't want a lot of. I see some people that are trying to, like, learn more and then they get it the wrong way because the live is only so short. You're on social media. I don't want you to be distracted. I do that all the time. I watch a live and then I scroll to the next thing and I come back later. Right. So I don't want that to happen. I want you guys inside of the zoom so you understand the full picture. Because if I tell you a little bit, that would be doing you a disservice. I believe I would rather use money to open a zoom account to have you guys inside instead of putting it live. Okay. And the second thing is that, you know, there's a lot of therapists out there, especially where I live around, that they might take the content and then use it for themselves. I think that's totally okay. If they copy me, I don't really care. But the problem again, is that they don't get the whole picture, you know what I'm saying? So I would much rather that I spend my own money for them to come in and learn the whole thing and then they can do whatever they want with it. Okay, so that's the reason why I want you guys inside of a private zoom call. If you haven't, just go there and sign up now. And then that thing is actually on Wednesday. Wednesday night. This Wednesday night, GMT +7. Right. So it's probably at the same time as now like 9pm or something. So we're going to go on a Zoom call and talk there. All right, so let's take a look at Ku Yan's question. All right, so Kuyen says, wondering, is it possible for 3 year old spectrum kid rarely or never heard him intentionally speak. And his elder brother told me he heard a little speak complicated words. I hardly believe it because I never heard it before. He was trained to open palm gesture. Well and more gestures, but he still prefers actions instead of open his mouth. Yeah. Hey, you know what? I've seen multiple cases where, you know, kids who on the spectrum are able to remember full, full on words from I don't know where. Okay. And they're able to speak those words and not use it. All right, so your problem now is Ku Yen, is that you know, like, of course it's possible. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's possible. That's my answer to you. So your biggest challenge now is actually to get him to copy your words first. Okay. And it's hard because they've already. Your child is already used to not copying and not copying you and ignoring you. So at least now you've been able to train his open palm and more gestures. Then it's great. So the next step is to see if he can do some like mouth shapes, not mouth shape imitations. Like for instance, open mouth or spread lips or like pucker lip like that without sounds first. Because I don't. I want them to look at your mouth and that's how you get eye contact. Okay. It's not by they know, pushing them, you know, like whatever or like turning their heads and breaking their necks or something. It's not like that. It's to slowly increase the imitation towards the mouth and then turn into a sound so that they know they need to look in order to know what to say. Right. So it needs to be like a how to say. It's not like straight line. It's like we are taking a little detour to get to where we want to teach them what we want. Right. If he's again, Kuyan, there's no such thing. If, if he's in a good mood, it's about if the reward is good enough for him, okay? You just gotta trust me on this, man. There's no such thing as in a good mood, all right? If he's in a bad mood, then get something that's more enticing for him. You know, it doesn't matter. In the beginning, I would strongly believe that and strongly by whatever, you know, by how much I've been doing this kind of therapy is that in the beginning rewards can be as crazy as they, as they sound. And I just want to share this experience with you guys that the own. That there's one client that I still see, okay? And that client is. I'm only seeing him because he's finally using sounds. He's been non verbal for a year plus with me. And of course, obviously to me that's very. How to say, it's defeating to me as well, because for me, it's very difficult for me to have a child come to me and not start talking within like three months, right? So it's very hard for me as well. But the, but the thing about it, okay, is that this kid has a certain disorder that doesn't help him. It's much slower in terms of speech development. And I'm not going to put it on myself that, you know, actually I do all the time, right? It's like, oh man, I'm doing a bad job. How about I just don't see them anymore and tell them to find someone else. This happens a lot to therapists. More than you would like you would imagine, actually. But I didn't give up. I really didn't. And the reason why is because I see it incremental increase and I know that he wants to imitate me. He just cannot yet. Therefore I will break down it and make it easier. Go yen. It sounds to me and a lot of people here, lot of parents, children can actually create the speech sounds. They are motorically capable. Those children who are motorically incapable, we need to squinch it to step by step by step, okay? The reason why I know for a fact that he's able to. He wants to copy me is because I've enticed them, I've made them understand how the whole thing works, okay? I made them know that by doing this, you will get this. And then I see him trying, okay? So in the beginning I use like very unhealthy chips, okay? Very unhealthy. The stuff what we Call Chitato. Okay? And her mom, I'm sorry, his mom put him on like a gluten free diet and obviously he does get rashes and he gets very, he gets very sensitive and so on. But we had to do it if we didn't use that as like, it's like a child's cocaine, you know, I'm talking about like that kind of chips with msg when we only used it. The only reason we use it is because it works. Okay? And I know that the reward is so strong. He will give me the true, his true ability and therefore I can plan effectively. And I know that he's not just being, you know, being a prankster and according to his mood, right? There's none of that because I've given him the best thing I can give him, all right? And I use that as a reward. Okay? So there's no such thing as only when he has the mood. All right, then you don't need to go to work, right? It's not your mood. What drives you to go to work when you don't have the mood? The salary man, the responsibility, the routine that you have developed already, right? And you need that with the kid, okay? Or else don't talk about like, you don't need to talk about teaching words, you don't need to talk about teaching sentences that we're talking about here. If you don't have a very structured approach, a routine base that you can use to teach new words, teach them new verbs, teach them new sentence structures, teach them how to use stuff, then, you know, might as well just go to therapy. And of course you must go to therapy, right? You must seek professional advice. What I mean is, might as well just get someone else to do it, you know, because it's going to be so hard on you. All right. Okay, so. Hi, Timothy from Nigeria. Great to have you here. Okay, so you have a two year old son that is diagnosed with autism. Well, let me know if you have any questions. I'm going to stay here for a few more minutes. Kuyan says when the reward is in front of him, he fully focused on the reward. Another of any other than the reward, how he drops his focus in the mouth. Yeah, well, like the thing is like I don't understand, like what I don't understand is like Kuigen, you can upload some videos to like even if you're not in the beta membership, right? That's fine as, as long as you're fine with like putting the videos on, on our Facebook group, in the private One, I'm more than happy to take a look at it. Okay, please guys, don't send me any more videos in private because I can't go through all of them. I really cannot. And the best way really is if you're okay with the privacy issues that you share it and then we all discuss it over on the private Facebook group. If you're in the micro course, then we can all talk about it. There are loads of parents there who can look at what's going on, what's wrong, or what's correct. It's not all just corrections. There might be things that we can celebrate together. The thing about it is that you said that he's doing the open palm, but obviously he's not yet, because all he's focusing is on the snack. So if he understands getting the snack, his open palm will. And he knows that the only way to get it is through an open palm. He will just do like that and look at you and wait. Or look at that. Or look at the reward and just put his hands out and wait. Right. So the problem here is Ku Yen is that he hasn't learned the initiative to use the gesture to get what he wants. Right? He's still, you know, that's the problem. That's the problem here. So you have to. You don't drive his focus to his mouth sound first. You drive his understanding for using gestures to get what he wants first. All right, so you know, whether it's putting up here or putting it down here or making him do it and then give it to him, like hide the reward first. There's a lot of stuff you need to do. Like you need to show a video in order for me to give you a good answer. All right, He started walking. Few weeks now, he has not started talking. Please, what do I need to do? Well, you know, Timothy, there are loads of resources on this YouTube page. If you want to, you can join the micro course. It's agents of speech.com micro. I think that's the best starting point for everyone. And then we have Vibushita. Hi. Add you to the private Facebook group. You can go to this one first. Right, but we have two groups. One group is for parents who have gone through something like gone through at least the micro course. You can join that one. If not, this is the public one. So this is the public one here. All right, so you can join that inside of the comments. Okay. You can just click that and join. Be sure to answer all the questions or else the admin will not accept it. Okay? We have too many of those people who want to come into our group and sell their stuff. Like, they sell the book, sell whatever, and harass parents and so on. So we need to make sure that everyone is a parent or. Or a therapist who wants to help and not people who are trying to do whatever. Okay? So thanks, guys. I am going off, like, pretty soon, like, right now, and I just wanted to say thank you to you guys, and I hope to see you if your child is ready to do, like, Word Combiners, to teach them to put, like, two words together and so on. Right. That you will join me at the private class on Wednesday, Word Combiners Webinar. So you can click the link down below. If you want to put in your. Your email, let me know and we'll talk on Zoom on Wednesday. Okay? Wednesday night. Okay, so that's it, guys. Thank you so much. And I'll see you next week or this Wednesday if. If you're up for it. See ya.