Why You Should Create Routines with Speech Delayed Children

Let's talk about creating routines. So my name is Ming from Agents of Speech. I'm a speech therapist. And you know, you hear a lot of speech therapists are like behavioral therapists, interventionists, whatever those people, this professional saying, oh, you're gonna start like routines and stuff with your kid, you know, like, you gotta make it fun and engaging and stuff. So why, first of all, and how. Okay, so let's talk about the why first. The why is because language follows a context, okay? No matter how old your child is, okay? In order to learn something, or even you, you must have a context, right? Without context is very hard to learn anything, especially language. Language is highly contextual based, okay? I don't have something right in front of you to describe what I want you to do, and I don't explain the context nicely to you, then it's very difficult for you to actually enjoy what I'm about to teach you, right? So what, what am I trying to say? Language follows context. If you have a routine, a routine is very, very, very easy for a child to learn and understand. Okay? So for instance, if you were to tell a teacher child the word, the word open, right, as we talk a lot inside of this channel, right? Why do they need to learn that word is because there's a context that demands them to. To say that word, right? So you must create that context first before you teach the word, or else it wouldn't have a meaning. Okay? That's the main point. All right? Second of all, which brings me to the next one, teaching the meaning of a word. So a lot of children, if you see them, a lot of parents who ask me will say, oh, my kid has words like apple, orange, they know ABCs. They know 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way to 20. They know the colors, they know whatever. But at the same time, do they truly know how to use it in the world, Right? So that's what something. What we call language use. And language use is something that's very important. Like, it doesn't matter if you know all the words in the dictionary, but you don't know how to like, write it together into. Into like a succinct story or manual or whatever, and use it in a way that provides value to society, then what's the use of it, right? That's language use. And at the same time, a lot of these children, like, these children I'm talking about, like language delayed children, what they do is that they use language in a different way. They don't use it as a way to communicate with you. They use it as a way for self entertainment. And you see that and a lot maybe in the videos that I talk about, like virtual autism, which isn't really autism, but it's just a name that has been like getting popularized nowadays. But what it is really is that they've been learning this language from tv, from their phone, and these words aren't connected to the real world in the way that, you know, you would learn. Right? So the context is wrong. The context is virtual, right? So therefore when they're using these words, it's not going to like, they're not going to use it at the right place, right time, and definitely not with you because the way that they learned it is totally different. Okay, so the other thing is the meaning of the word. So because the context is way outside of the world, right? Not in the real world, therefore the meaning of it will be a little skewed, right? And therefore they cannot generalize it back into like everyday conversation. And they don't, they won't use it the way that they, that you would want them to. All right, so long way to tell you that if you don't have a routine, you won't have a context. And when you don't have a context, it's very hard to teach the word. If you don't have a context to teach a word, you will only teach the sound and maybe like towards the image or. But it won't be the whole meaning of the word and the meaning plus how it's used in real life. Okay. That's how you use context, Right? That's what it means. All right, so the other thing is, routines are great for children on the spectrum and also children who are really good at language. Why? Because children are calm. Like people are calm. I'm calm when I'm at home. Why? Because I know what's going on. I am not calm outside, you know, in, in, I don't know, in a blackpink concert, because I don't know what, what the heck's going on. I don't know what to expect. I don't know what's going to go. Go on. Right? You know, like, I wouldn't feel safe. And that's why a routine really helps children, is because, you know, if they're already okay with going to school, going to a certain therapy center, going to whatever, it becomes a routine. They know what's going on. They're actually quite calm. Right. But when things go outside the situations, what happens is that the child gets rather scared. Okay? So if you create a routine, what you're basically doing is you're explaining the task to the child, saying that, dude, look, first you do this and then you do this and then you do that, right? Let me give you an example so that you know it's not all just in the cloud, what I'm talking about. So let's come back to earth and I'll talk about how you can use it. So one of the ones that I talk about a lot is using a car slide. You can go look at all the play videos inside of our channel, right? The, the thing about it, the one I love is to use bubbles. So you take a bubble, you squeeze it. I've talked about this before in different video, but I'll say it again. Now you squeeze it, you give it to your child, squeeze tight so he can't open it. So he has to give it back to you, right? The moment he gives it back to you, put the bubble between your thighs, take his hand, teach him to use open, this gesture. After he does it, you open it so that at the moment that you say the word and do the gesture of open, you actually open the lid. So the context and the word and the sound, they all link together and they knows the meaning, right? After that you take out. You can teach take out as a gesture and the word or take or out, whichever you like, according to your mother tongue as well. Doesn't matter. And then after you teach your child to do it together, right? Take, you really take out the, this, the, the. The bubble wand, right? And then you go. When before you blow, you say 1, 2, 3, blow. Your turn, blow. Even if your child doesn't say it, you know, teach the gesture a little bit and then blow whilst your child is popping, screw it back on and wait and rinse and repeat. Do this routine for like five or six times, you know, until your child is like board. And you can use this framework for anything. You can use it with a car slide, you can use it for snacks. Basically anything that has a few words in it. Like, you know, you can target, open, take, blow for bubbles. You can target, open, give, eat for like snacks. You can target, open, give, go for like a car slide. It's just up to you. Okay, so that's why we need to use routines for speech delayed children. Okay? And what about children who are talking already? It's also like you need routines for children who are already talking in like one or two words so that you can make it into a sentence. Because if you have a sequence, if you watch the videos about sequential play is inside of our channel, then you will know. Maybe I'll link it here. Okay, I'll link it here as well. And what you can do is that you're teaching them how exactly to play a toy correctly. Right? First you wash a carrot and then you cut the carrot and then you wipe the carrot and then you. And then you cook the carrot and last you eat the carrot. Right? So there's a step, step, step, step. There's still a routine. And every time there's a routine, you change one thing inside. You can do a different phrase. Like you finish with the carrot and then you do a broccoli. You finish a broccoli, you do like eggplant. So it's intuitive and it's very good because children who are on the spectrum or delay, they love a routine because it really grounds them down. All right, so, okay, so that's it for this video. If you have any more questions, just put them at the comment section below. We outlined this method very clearly inside of our micro course. You can go check it out at agents of speech.com and if you haven't, please go to agents of speech.com/, hand pulling. If your child is pulling your hand towards things that he wants you to give him. All right, so it's a five minute activity that you can do at home and it's basically a routine for you right there. Okay, Use that framework and let me know how it goes. All right, See you next week. Bye bye.