Why Delayed Children Won't Speak Even Though They Have Words

Hey ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're going to talk about why children won't use words even if they have words. So I just, I got off a call today with a parent and she was saying how the child was not using words although he would sing rhymes, he would use words and full sentences when he was thinking about a particular story. So this particular boy was on the spectrum and the things that the mom was describing is very similar to all the cases that we see over the Internet. And obviously we've made these videos before. If a child knows how to recite, ABC loves this and that and still doesn't talk, why is it right? So just here is an updated version and I want to tell you. So the first thing is there are different functions of language, right? If you talk about a child using words and sentences for self entertainment purposes to a lot of people is that that particular word is only for this particular situation. It was very difficult for children on the spectrum to generalize the use use of a word in different scenarios. The language function of saying the rhymes, saying the sentences, remembering a book and suddenly saying it out loud, all these are for self entertaining purpose that you have to remember for them to change that and use it for commenting, for sharing a thought or whatever. Those need to be built. Those functions need to be built before the language will come. So if a child already has the words, already has the sentences, but are not using it, it means that at this point in time they don't have that function at all. So you have to think about does my child tap on me and point towards something that they find very amusing? If not, then maybe you need to work on that first and create that relationship with your child so that your child will actually show you something. Right? I want to share his toys, his thoughts, his whatever with you, right? So that's the first part. Whenever it's to deal with these cases in speech therapy we have something called language form, language content and language use. All right, so language content is like the different type of words, the vocabulary, so on and so forth. The form is the sentence structure, the grammatical rows of words and whatever. And then language use itself is what is the language used for? Right. When I was learning form, French, believe it or not, my second language actually French and I forgot all of it. The reason is because I have no like in using it. So when I was learning French again when I was in secondary school, I had a lot of sentences and words that were out of context. So for instance, the one that I Remember, the most is je suis vedu bello or whatever that means I ride a bicycle, just like I'm fishing or whatever. So these ones, I have no use for saying it with anyone. If a French person came up to me, all I can say is, hi. And then I'll either say, I go fishing, I go ride a bicycle. I'm going to the library, or whatever. Think about that. Because I don't have another use for it. And this is me having the content and the form, but I will really have to use to say, tell someone I'm riding a bicycle. Whereas all the forms, all the uses that I learned for as a functioning adult, like having small talk, saying, what's up? How are you? And all these. I don't have the content and the form in French to say it. So even if I really want to, like, this is a different kind of child we're talking about, not the child we're talking about. Some children are very social, right? They're super social. And then they really want to come over and show you something. Look at this. My watch. Or whatever. But they don't have the words, right? And you can see that it's like total opposite. You have children who have words, but they don't have initiation. Or they're, like, very stubborn to not use the words that they already have. And you have the flip side, which is like, someone that's super duper social. They go up to everyone, they show people things and they point out things and stuff, but they don't have the words to support that. I get a lot when they pretend to be on the phone and they want to talk to people and they're playing with toys and they're giving, like, monologues and dialogues and stuff. Stuff. But there aren't just a lot of languages involved. Whereas the flip side is the child I was actually describing is that he's five and he's got loads of scripts going on, and he would only use it in specific situations. So in this case, you should not be teaching even more language, right? They already have so much inside of the brain, and they don't even use it. So this is my advice to that mother. I'm like, look, right now we don't know what the breakdown level is. Like, we talk about breakdown level is what? Where communication breaks down, where language breaks down, where speech breaks down, where the behavior breaks out. Everything in the world has a breakdown level, even for, like, at the gym. What's the maximum repetition, right? So you think about that. What's your Max weight, What's your max rep? What's your max, Whatever. So we don't know what the max of the child's language abilities are. The first thing is to create a good relationship, a good working relationship with the child. So that at least when you get the child to imitate some sounds, some words, and imitation is a very strong tool. Why? Because if, let's say, go back to French, right? If I have no understanding about a language and you tell me to repeat after you, I will screw up most of the sounds of the words, just like today. I also spoke to another parent. Her name was a Nigerian word of which after she said it three times, I still couldn't get it. And that's because I lacked the knowledge of what sounds are inside of that language. What the individual words meant, I had no idea. So that's why imitation is very strong. Because if you get a child to imitate a full sentence, that's the novel new, and they can do it perfectly. They're most probably at least at that level when they're speaking, right? So it's super to check, right? If you like, let's say my mother tongue is Cantonese. So if I say a full sentence of Cantonese and you can repeat after me, most probably you have a good understanding of how a sentence structure works and the sounds and the words and whatever inside of Cantonese with which is a Chinese dialect and quotation marks. It's the same as when you're talking to your child. If your child isn't imitating after you and it's inconsistent and you can't get them to sit down and talk and check out what sentences they have and have not, then you're just walking in the dark because you don't know what language level they are at really. And then you want to try to teach more language, that's not cool because they probably have a lot inside. They're even more turned off. If that turns out you're trying to teach is too easy or too hard, you don't even know. So whenever you're doing any type of therapy, it needs to be just at the right level. If you think about it like if you're going to the gym, you need to push at the right level. Anything too easy, anything too hard will not yield you results. It's the same as physical therapy, the same as occupational therapy, the same as a lot of things. It needs to be right at the sweet spot. So you don't know the sweet spot. You're not doing therapy, right? You're most probably doing Some sort of like revision, right? You're most probably doing some sort of studying that isn't quite effective, right? So at the end of the day, you need to know where he is. But I told the parent, look, we need to sit this child down and see if we can teach him the idea of imitation. Once he understands the idea of imitation, great, then we can use that to teach other language functions, like playing with me, answering questions, or him asking a question to me, or commenting on things, describing events. If all of these language functions aren't available to a child, their language will be very narrow. That's why a lot of children have need based language, because all of their therapy has been about, oh, you say this, you get this, right? You want this, okay, say more. Whatever they call it manding in aba, they call it like requesting and speech therapy. We're all doing the same thing, to be honest. Like, we have something that someone wants and we teach them how to get it. That's fair enough. But then when we're doing like language function, it really is shaping a person to become more of a human. And I'm not saying that, I'm not dehumanizing children or special needs children. I'm not saying that even myself. When I first came into the workforce, I didn't know how to small talk, right? I didn't have that language function. I didn't know how to do it. So a lot of times I say things that are triggering to my colleagues. Back then when I first started working or I didn't care about something, I didn't understand how to, to read a social interaction. And of course there would be workplace politics. I didn't know how to do that. And that made me less functioning as a human, less human for other people to work with, right? And I had to learn it the hard way. I had to learn, oh, when he or she says that, she actually means that when I say this, it would make other people feel like such. So at the end of the day, you need to understand if you want your child to be more social, you may teach those social functions. But before all these social functions, you gotta understand where your child is at right now. What language function, what language level are we talking about? I throw all these words out there. It sounds very jargony, very professional or whatever. It really isn't, it's just, it's very simple, right? If you want to teach someone something, you need to know where they are right now. And if I asked you, how much does your child speak right now? And you say My child's language is all over the place, like some of the parents would tell me, then you really have to sit down and think about it because speech therapist will give you an assessment and you should ask, where is my child at in terms of language right now? Don't need an age for it. You don't need, oh, your child is at four years old. The thing is, most children who are on the spectrum or whatever, they're disordered, meaning they're all over the place. So giving you an age equivalence is not going to work for a disordered case. It might work for a delayed case. You need to know what are the goals that you need need to do. You need a roadmap, right? So in order to have that roadmap, you need to educate yourself first, right? So if you want to, you can go to www.agentsofspeech.com course educate yourself on how to teach your child on a daily basis without burning yourself out. Take 5 to 10 minutes just interacting with your child, getting those things in imitation, learning how to play with him, learning how to teach, teach, question answering. All these things are important. So go there, obspeech.com course and you'll learn everything you need there. All right, so that's all for today's video and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.