Why Do Children Stop Talking? | Speech Therapist on Language Regression

Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're going to talk about language regression. So this is a topic that a lot of parents ask me about. Hey, my child used to be able to say like one to two words, say this is what that one, whatever, and call mama and papa. And suddenly for no particular good reason that they stop talking and they start pulling your hand, start crying and start to be in their own little world. If this is describing your child, then this video is for you because this happens too many times and I'm just going to make a video about it. Okay? So first things first, all children are different. So all the reasons that we talk about here might not be the whole reason. Usually it's a few reasons together. I try my best to go through the three reasons, the most common ones, but the best thing you can do for you and your child is to see a speech therapist physically and get a diagnosis and see what's going on. Okay? All right. So first of all, if sometimes you feel like your child is losing words, like forgetting how to say words and so on, forgetting what they've already learned already, then there are usually three reasons. Okay. Number one, there's not enough language facilitation and it's not a language rich environment. So around two or three weeks ago, we uploaded a video called Virtual autism. Right. So virtual autism is not really the same as autism. You can watch that video. It should be linked somewhere around here. Just click on our channel after this video and watch it. Okay, but at the same time, what does it mean when you don't give enough language facilitation or your child is living in an environment that isn't language rich. So a lot of times when children are exposed to screen time, what happens is a one way communication. They're only absorbing content from the screen. Like you are right now looking at me. But the problem is that you already acquired language, whereas the kid hasn't yet. So therefore absorbing language from the screen isn't the best language environment that you can give your kid. Okay? So when you do that, they don't really understand what's going on. Okay, that's number one. Okay. And if they have words already, the context that they can only use is within the screen and it gets reinforced every time within the screen. Right? So that's something you have to be careful about. So what I mean here is that you need some quality time to play with a kid. And when I say I'll play with kid, it's a very generic advice. So we have videos about how to play with toys. There's a playlist in our, in our channel. So go ahead and check it out Anyways. So secondly, is that the reaction to spoken words sometimes is not language facilitating. What does that mean? Sometimes when a child says something and they haven't done it in a, in a while, what, what happens is that Chinese parents will go, okay, like that. Western parents will go, wow, like that. Okay, well, either way, both of them are not language facilitating. The number one, if you just think that, oh, it's within their, what's that called? They're supposed to say a word. So you're like, oh, okay, good. Like that. What does that help your child with? Nothing really. Okay. Because if you only acknowledge the fact that, that they talk and not praise them or repeat the sentence or whatever or the phrase, it's not going to help them facilitate their more language growth. Okay, that's number one. Number two, if you like, don't open the topic. Wow, like that actually like, makes the child feel like, whoa, what's going on? This kind of reaction does work for children who haven't learned how to imitate words or use words at all. And we only use it for like a very short period of time because it's what we call artificial attention. Right. You say something like that, whilst that's good, but at the same time that reaction is too much and it usually makes the child feel like, whoa, taken aback. So how do you make it facilitating is that you repeat the word one more time and then, and if you can, you can point out to the stuff that they're referring to in the real world so that they make a link in the real world, right, about the word, the sound and the thing, the concept, the object. Okay, so which brings us to the next point, which is the link between words, the meaning and the function is very blurry when they learn words. So when children at around two, they start using words, it might actually in their minds be not words. Okay. They might not be words that they, they don't know the meaning of it. They're just saying it. And what we do is like, oh, the kids are seeing it at the right context. It means that they know the word. Not really. Sometimes it's what researchers are calling proto words, meaning they're prototypes of words. They're not sure what it is, they're just blurbing it out. Okay, that's number one. Meaning that, oh, these words aren't really words. There are sounds that they've picked up somewhere. Okay. Second of all, Is it echolalia? Echolalia doesn't mean autism. We'll talk about autism later. But echolalia can happen with children who aren't on the spectrum as well. It's a way of acquiring language anyway, so a lot of typical developing children will also have echolalia. All right? So when you find out that, okay, maybe he doesn't really know the word per se, so the link between the words and the meaning and the function become blurry, therefore, they might know these words, but they don't know how to use it in different situations. That's why you see that, oh, they used it once and they never said it again. Right? They said it a few times and then it's gone because they didn't acquire it 100%. Okay? So you see children who are language delayed or disordered, they have a problem with mapping words. There's a term that you can search online that we talk about sometimes. It's called fast mapping is where they start mapping all the words in the world. Really quickly they start to. There's a word explosion. They go, oh, this is a cat. This is a lamp. This is a microphone. They like, boom, boom, boom. I know it now. But children who are disordered or delayed in terms of language, they cannot do that. It's kind of difficult for them. So therefore, if they aren't reinforced, like I said, if you aren't facilitating them because they've said a word or something once or twice, then they're going to not know how to use it in a different way. Okay? Doesn't mean they've lost it. It's never the case that they've lost it. It just means that they didn't know how to, like, use that language in a different context in the correct context. Okay? So that is something you have to be careful about because picking up language is very difficult for a child who is already delayed or disordered. So it's going to be like, you need to facilitate them whenever you hear it and don't take it for granted. All right? The third reason is the word that no parent wants to hear, which is autism. Okay? So asd, Autism Spectrum disorder. Up till now, we have had some research showing that ASD people, or children in general, at around 2 or 3, their brain structure is. Is like. It develops differently from a typical developing child. Okay. And that doesn't mean, like, you know, they grow with different, like, logos. No, not. Not like that. It's just that the distribution is different. Okay. I don't want to over complicate things. If you want to, you can like ask me about it, but I, I, it's not, I'm not a huge expert on this. I just know this through reading. Okay. So if you want to know where I read it, I'll send it to you if you ask me. But, but at the same time, I don't want to mind boggle you, but what it means is that these changes biologically in the brain also translates to the symptoms of ASD surfacing at similar ages. Okay. So when these symptoms come out, the symptoms of asd, the most predominant one is obviously the inability to social. Like, they don't know why they should talk to you, why use sounds, they don't get it right. So you pair that with the onset time and the regression time. Then therefore it becomes clear that it's because of the onset of ASD that makes it feel like they start to regress back behind. It's actually their development has halted and they haven't been learning new words, learning how to use those words, learning how to interact with people with the words that they know. And therefore it feels like it's gone back because they have the, their social abilities have stagnated. Okay. And therefore it's very difficult for them to learn any more words. And therefore you will see them hand pulling a lot as well. And hand pulling doesn't even only happen with ASD children. Happens also with just, you know, just normal language delay or disorder. Okay. And what that means is that hand pulling is the easiest way to get their message across and speech is difficult, therefore they would go for it and do that. So at the end of the day to tackle language regression is number one, get an assessment right now with a speech therapist. Number two is to help facilitate their language at home through acknowledging the words. Say it one more time with them, add one more word to each word that they say. Be okay with accepting gestures as a way of communication. We've said that loads of times on this channel. And number three is that what you can do is introduce a lot more play with them so that they have environment, a context where they can use language. Okay, so that's it for this video. And if you haven't, you can go to agents of speech.comchecklist to grab a free list of tools and toys that I recommend you if you want to start home therapy today. Okay, so that's it. And I will see you next week. Bye Bye.