“Breaking Barriers: The Power of Speech with Jeaneen Tang”

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What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Entertainment, the podcast that brings you stories behind the success. Today we have a special guest, a link language, a speech language author and parent advocate. Of course, I couldn't pronounce the, the, the word, that's why I left it out. How you doing today, Jeanine Tay?

I'm doing well today. How are you, CJ?

All right, yourself? Yeah, sometimes I feel like Moses. I have a speech impediment. And so, Jeanine, thank you for coming on today. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background?

Absolutely. So I'm originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, and I moved to Los Angeles in 2005. I started doing speech therapy over 20 years ago. And I didn't know that I wanted to be a speech therapist growing up. I just knew I wanted to help people. And I believe that stemmed all the way back to when I was 8 years old and my grandfather was sick. He had lung cancer and he ended up passing away. And at the time I felt very helpless, you know, as a child, not being able to help my grandfather who I loved dearly in his later and last days, you know, I couldn't help him walk or do anything for him. And I wanted to help people, and I wasn't sure how exactly I wanted to do that. And growing up, I thought maybe I'd be a teacher. And then in high school, I played sports. I thought maybe I could do physical therapy because I've heard about that. And so I went to college, and I knew I needed to get a graduate degree in order to do physical therapy. So I got my undergraduate degree in my other love, which is English literature. With a minor in creative writing. And when it came time to apply to grad school, I was a little bit unsure because everybody seemed to be wanting to do physical therapy at the time. It seemed very saturated and I wasn't exactly sure if that was the path I wanted to go down. And somebody suggested to me, have you thought about speech therapy? Because I had done some performance speeches in high school and college. And so that language and speech part of me was in there and it kind of intertwined with my English literature background as well. And, you know, I was able to go back to the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa and finish my graduate degree there in speech-language pathology. And I've been doing it for 23 years now, which is a very long time. And I love working with both children and adults. I work 2 days at the hospital with adults, and then I work 3 to 4 days a week with children and exclusively early language development more recently. I worked, you know, in the schools for a long time as well, but my passion really is for early language development, and that kind of brings me to where I am today, and this is my path.

Yes, a wonderful path for a lady that moved from Hawaii to beautiful California. So, Jeanine, you said something about— I didn't see that— everybody, you played sports. What type of sports did you play?

Oh, uh, growing up I did gymnastics. And then when I reached high school, that's when I discovered volleyball and basketball. And then I was a little bit too tall to really be competitive at gymnastics, and I wasn't really amazing at it anyways. So I kind of shifted to cheerleading. And so when I went to college, I played volleyball at an NAIA Division II school, and I played basketball, you know, kind of throughout, kind of intramurals and everything, a little bit of club basketball and You know, I, I cheered at college for 1 year, which was amazing. Those cheerleaders are so fit. I was in the best shape of my life doing cheerleading. And then I still play volleyball now. My co-ed volleyball team actually just won our season that just ended, and we're starting a new season now. We were undefeated, which is great. And I'm thankful that I can still play because I'm 48 now and I'm the oldest person on my team. Wow. And then I recently picked up pickleball, so I've been playing pickleball for almost 2 years now, and I, I love it. I love it. It's amazing.

That's great. We got a hooper on the podcast today, a volleyball player— they went undefeated— and a teacher and a scholar. Boy, I tell you, she got the whole package. I thank you for sharing that with us, Janine. Hey, so Janine, on a more serious note, tell us about the situation you had with your son when he was 13 months old. And how did it impact your journey as an SLP?

So I was already a speech therapist when I had my son. And growing up, I didn't really know if I needed to have children because I had nieces and I was very happy just to be an auntie. And the universe allowed me to have my child in 2012, and he's amazing. And unfortunately, when he was 13 months old, it was a very split-second accident where he fell off of the bed. And we didn't have a high bed. It was only a box spring and a mattress. So it was only 18 inches off the ground, but the way he had fallen must have been perfect to create a large brain bleed. And he was crying for a minute or so, and then he just passed out. And so when we rushed him to the emergency room, they immediately did a CAT scan and found a large subdural hematoma, and it required him to have an emergency craniotomy. And a few days later in the hospital, He had a stroke. And so, you know, to add insult to injury, he not only nearly died, the surgery was life-saving. And then after his stroke, they said he might never walk or talk. And that was heartbreaking because he was, you know, this perfect little baby before that. And because he had fallen such a short distance and it didn't really correlate to how injured he was. They thought that we tried to hurt him or even kill him. Wow. And so there was, you know, besides him having to recover and us having to approach parenting and life in a whole different way, we also had to deal with, you know, custody because They took custody away from us, and thankfully my son's father's mom, my son's grandmother, was able to be the guardian of our son while we didn't have custody, and he didn't have to go to foster care, you know. But I wasn't allowed to be alone with him for 10 months, which is, as a mom, it's tragic, you know. It was about 20 months until we legally got custody back. And he's amazing. He's going to be 12 next month. He is walking, he's running, he's doing all kinds of things. He doesn't use his right arm or hand, and he still has some balance issues. So he learned to play basketball. I taught him how to play basketball and he can shoot with his left hand. He can do a little layup and he plays at the YMCA and they're very inclusive and having, you know, people with disabilities participate and all the referees know him in the league and all the players know just to give him a little extra space when he gets the ball and he can make a basket more times than not. But it was different, you know, cuz we had to change the way we approached parenting, how we approached what we thought he was gonna be, you know, getting older. And as a parent, a special needs child now, I had a different perspective, you know, than I did as a speech therapist. And it really helped me gain empathy for people that are parents and caregivers of special needs individuals. Because early on I was a speech therapist and I was happy working with children with special needs, but I was very thankful I did not have a child with special needs myself because I thought it was so difficult and I did not think I could handle it. And of course, the universe deals you these cards. And you don't get something you can't handle. So we learned to pivot and take action. And I think that in a way, although my son isn't normal, right? He has these special needs. And he's going to continue to need support. I think it gave me the ability to relate to other people better and have a better perspective, have better empathy, and approach therapy in a different way because I can see the different perspectives coming from a parent as well as a therapist and everything in between.

I thank you for sharing that story. That was a very heartfelt story that you shared. I can tell that you was getting a little emotional on there yourself just thinking about it and going through it. So I thank you for sharing that, and I'm thankful that Everything worked out for the better that he's still here and able to do some of the things that, you know, that you've taught him and things of that nature. And like you said, I know dealing with lifetime life experiences, it can change your perspective on certain things and how you approach certain things. And, you know, just thank you that he gave you guys the strength and endurance to overcome that and continue being great parents and being who you are. And like you said, taking it into your work and that gives you a different perspective as well. And so speaking of that, Janine, what are some of the most common speech and language disorders you have encountered in your practice?

So for early intervention, we see a lot of kids that are late talkers, right? They might understand, they might be able to listen to directions, but they just aren't able to communicate. So we have a lot of late talkers. We have a lot of kids who are unintelligible. They're making sounds, but you don't know what they're saying, right? And then there are kids who have something, maybe autism, or they might have some other birth— not defect, but birth— something from birth that is impacting their language and how they're able to understand and express. So those are very, very common, especially in the early intervention.

So with that, so what are some of the early signs parents should look for if they suspect that their child may have a speech or language delay?

Yeah, one of the big things that you should look out for is, is your child babbling? Are they making vocal sounds? Are they turning to you when you call their name or when you make a noise or a toy rattling? You know, are they turning towards that sound? Are they able to understand when you're giving them a direction, or are they able to try to mimic the sounds that you're trying to make as well? You know, like children are going to start babbling, and then soon those babbles will start forming into different intonations similar to adult speech. And then a child will say their first word about 1 year old, so about 12 months. So you would expect them to say their first word, and anywhere between 10, 11 months on the earlier side, all the way to maybe 13, 14 months. And if they're not saying their first word by then, then you should definitely look into accessing the free speech therapy that they are eligible for between 0 to 3 years old. If the baby is not babbling before that, that's definitely a red flag, and they should be looking at other early intervention strategies, whether it's speech therapy or They have infant stimulation, which encompasses a little bit of speech therapy as well as some occupational and physical therapy and play therapy as well.

That's some good information right there because like I didn't know, you know, like you gave the age group 0 to 3 years old if they not babbling at this age. So that's some good stuff right there that you just gave us. And I know just on a side note, I know, so if the baby not saying Dada, first thing they want to say first, dada. Get that checked out. So, Janine, tell us, how do you tailor your therapy techniques to fit each individual unique needs?

Yeah, absolutely. Every child is different, right? Every individual is their own person. So you have to really see what interests the child because a lot of therapy between 0 and 3 years old is— it looks like play, but it's really structured play, finding the interests of the child and working with them on interacting and responding and hopefully getting them motivated to try to talk. Because sometimes kids are afraid to make mistakes, you know. You think, oh, this kid isn't talking. There's, there's a— there's a number of children who really are afraid to make mistakes, and it's kind of ingrained in who they are as a person. This is a mini meditation guided by Bombas. Repeat after me. I'm comfy, comfy. I'm cozy, cozy. I have zero blisters on my toes, blisters. And that's because I wear Bombas, the softest socks, underwear, and t-shirts that give back. One purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombas.com .com/listen and use code LISTEN for 20% off your first purchase. That's bombas.com/listen and use code LISTEN at checkout. Sometimes, you know, and then there are some kids who just are not focused on what the activities might be. So you really need to gain their interest and slowly by slowly, you know, have them be interested and interacting. For longer periods of time.

Mm.

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That sounds great. So with these techniques that you use, unique techniques that you use for each individual and some of the common practices that you've been telling us about. So I know that you tailored all of these for your book. So can you tell us a little bit about your book, Play Dumb and Sabotage? What inspired you to write it, and what is the biggest takeaway that you would like to have readers to take from it?

Yeah, so I've been doing speech therapy for over 20 years, and I've always wanted to have like either a handbook or something that parents and caregivers and educators could turn to and have as their toolbox, you know? So what can you do? Because we go through birthing training, right? When we have kids and everything, but we don't go through language development training as caregivers and parents. And even a lot of educators don't learn about early language development the way that they should, right? So I wanted to create this material, this handbook, for people to be able to read and interact with. I wrote it in a super conversational way. Each chapter has activities at the end for them to practice the strategies that I'm introducing. And I wanted to create a greater impact on the world because I'm just one person and I can't multiply myself in person to do therapy with people, but I can duplicate what I know in this book and hopefully have a greater outreach to other people. And some of the greatest gratification that I've had writing the book is from like the parents I've worked with, but also my other speech therapy colleagues. They've read the book and they said, oh, this is great. Every parent should read this and every new speech therapist should read this. So that was validating because I don't know, you know, when you write a book, you have this imposter syndrome of like, oh, who's going to read it? Is it true? Is it making sense? And then, you know, you publish it and you're like, oh gosh, you know, what are they going to say? And so it was great to have that validation and get that response from people. You know, some of the things that I have, one of my chapters is, you know, you're a good parent. And what it means that, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And as parents, we think being a good parent or caregiver is anticipating all the things that our child might need, right? The subtitle of my book is to mindfully under-anticipate the child's needs and create opportunities to practice language. So it kind of explains what the play dumb and sabotage is, because I don't— you've heard of helicopter parents, right? We know exactly what the child wants to eat, or we think we know what the child wants to eat, what they want to play with, if they're cold or hot, what they might want to watch on TV. So we do all these things for our kids, but in actuality, by doing, doing, doing, we're not allowing the child to interact naturally and we're not creating opportunities for them to practice language. So playing dumb is to maybe know exactly what the child might want, but create these opportunities where the child can make the choice. Or the child can be in that decision-making process or interaction and play process. So if I was getting my son dressed when he was little, I would ask him, hey, do you want to wear the blue shirt or the red shirt? And I would hold it about shoulder width apart because children don't know vocabulary unless they're introduced to it, right? So they need to see it, they need to experience it. And then even if he can't talk and he can just look at one of them Then I could say, "Oh great, let's wear that blue shirt. Oh, I love blue. Blue is my favorite color. Let's put it on." So we have this language, what we call language bombardment. So you have the vocabulary, you have the simple phrase or sentence, and then expand that concept to something larger that the child is absorbing because they are little sponges, you know. So simple things like that. A simple way also is to during snack time, just to give a couple pieces of a snack. Say you're doing Goldfish or something, give just 2 or 3 pieces of Goldfish and have the rest of the Goldfish in sight but out of reach. So the child might indicate that they want it by reaching or looking at it, or maybe later on they're gonna learn how to sign for more or say more or something like that. Another thing that parents could do is have a favorite toy in sight but out of reach. And in my book, I talked about my godson, Kane. You know, he's going to be 15 in February and he's 6 foot tall. But when he was 9 months old, he was not crawling. He was very lazy. He was just tended to. And so he would just kind of lay there until people brought toys to him. And I remember he was lying on the ground and he really liked the slinky that I had. And I kind of wiggled it near him and then I pulled it away, wiggled it near him and pulled it away. And then slowly by slowly, he would start to reach for it and started to move his body. And then he started to move. So it was like simple things. I'm sabotaging him, right? Because I know that he wants it, but I'm pulling it away. And I know that he wants it, I'm pulling it away. So eventually he started to, you know, crawl and everything. And, you know, he's the starting quarterback of his JV football team this year. So he's come a long way since then. But I always tell him, I was like, you were a lazy, lazy baby.

Yeah, that's a good story right there. And so, Janay, where can we find the book and your social media handles?

Great. So they can find everything about me on my website. It's playdumbandsabotage.com, and there's a link for my book in there. It's on Amazon. It's also as a Kindle and an audiobook. And they could also check out my Instagram and Facebook. Handles on there as well. On Instagram, it's @jt808 is my personal, and Play Dumb and Sabotage is my business. And on Facebook, it's Janine Tang.

Okay, you heard it. Go grab the book, Play Dumb and Sabotage. You can find it on her website and you can follow on all social media channels. Hey, so Janine, so how do you collaborate with schools and teachers to support children with speech and language needs in the classroom?

So I've been doing parent and staff trainings at schools. So kind of reaching out locally right now. So at one of the preschools that I see kids at, I did a staff training just the other week and, you know, the staff listened to my strategies and then they asked questions. So I'm doing local outreach that way. I'm also going to be doing some webinars. They are not planned out yet, but I plan to do some webinars in the near future. As well as hopefully in the next 6 months do like an online trainings and conferences. My biggest, you know, overarching goal for the next year is to get a TED Talk, which would be amazing. But I'm available, you know, if they go to my website, playdumbandsabotage.com, they can reach out to me, any local or even national or international, they could reach out to me and I could do something virtual or in person if they're nearby.

Hey, you heard that? She want to do a TED Talk. Get on your show. She's been through a lot and she got a lot of wisdom and understanding in the niche that she's in. So reach out to her. Hey, so Janine, what roles does technology such as apps or communication devices play in modern speech therapy?

Yeah, absolutely. So there's some great apps out there. What I don't like is when parents put a child in front of a device and they just let the child play at will. You know, they just are not watching and interacting with the child. I think apps are definitely a great resource. If I use an app that's interactive during therapy, we might use it as a reward, but I'm there, I'm interacting with the child and we're commenting and discussing what's happening in the app because a lot of cause and effect things happen in apps, right? If you press this thing, then something will happen for that character in the application. And then also for kids who are not talking or have difficulty with communication, especially on the autism spectrum disorder, they can access a device. There are various different apps that will use pictures that they can press on that picture and it'll speak for them. So they can actually start to communicate and request and comment by using these pictures in order to say phrases, sentences, ask questions, have these conversations as well. So technology has really come a long way because before we had these devices that would communicate, we would have actual pictures, these little picture cards that the kids would exchange for a cookie or a chip or whatever they wanted, a glass of water. And now we still can use those very simple picture exchange communication systems, now we can use these tablet devices that will speak for the kid.

So right off the top of your head, do you know any apps that, like, say if somebody was listening to the show and they just wanted to go right then and there to one of these apps, do you know any right off the top of your head?

The one that I know is called Proloquo2Go. I can—

I got a speech impediment.

I know, it's called Proloquo2Go. Let me look it up real quick. I know it's a— okay, so it's P-R-O-L-O-Q-U-O and the number 2, go.

Okay.

Yeah, there's— yeah, there are a number of apps, but that's one of the ones I know. And then they also have Let's see, they have like Symbol2Talk AAC. So if you just go to your, your app store and you type in— so AAC means alternative augmentative communication. So AAC, if they type that in or even into Google, a lot of the different apps will pop up.

Okay, now I can say AAC. AAC. Hey, so Janay, I just got a couple more questions to ask. You've been a fantastic guest with a lot of insight on speech therapy. So what is one of the most rewarding cases or success stories you've been a part of during your career?

Oh, so I have, you know, I've worked with so many kids and one of my favorites has to be a little girl named Rose, and she has autism spectrum disorder, you know, and she was— I started working with her when she was 2 and a half, and I'm still working with her. She's gonna be 4 years old. No, actually, she's gonna be 5. She's gonna be 5 years old now. And, you know, when I was working with her, she was barely talking at all. She wasn't able to communicate, uh, you know, successfully or effectively. And now she is speaking in full sentences, having short conversations. She's very opinionated. And, you know, her parents are just, you know, always saying like, oh, it's, you know, we went to this party and she was talking to this other adult or this other kid and having like a 3 to 5 exchange conversation. And to see these kids, you know, especially like Rose, who came from like not talking at all and not being able to communicate, to to saying like, I want some chicken nuggets, please. You know, like actually being able to communicate what she wants in the moment, spontaneously, not imitating. Because a lot of times kids learn to imitate first, you know, and then they rely on before they can express, you know, to express themselves. And she can, she does so well. And she's in a school now with a main, she's mainstreaming quite a bit with regular ed kids. And educationally, she's doing really well. And, you know, her parents are amazing support— are amazing supports for her. And she has an older brother who's so supportive and her biggest cheerleader. And to see her to be so communicative is very rewarding.

Yeah, I just bet it is. Well, she had a great teacher, somebody that actually and truly cares. So I can just imagine how hard it felt and satisfying, gratifying that may be. Hello, Lil Rose. How you doing? Come on the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show, Rose. So my last question before we get out of here, Janine, what trends or advancements in speech therapy are you excited most about for the future?

You know, I think the use of AI and working, you know, having conversations be practiced and interactions practiced with AI, I think it'd be pretty amazing. You know, there's so many ways AI is like, oh, it's a little bit scary, you know, in the world. But I think the use of AI where a child or person can talk to or with an AI app or something would be very beneficial, you know, whether it's a child or an adult, because even for adults, like they might have had a stroke or they might have MS or Parkinson's or something where they need to practice their speech and have conversations. Sometimes practicing with a speech therapist is not always accessible. So having them be able to practice with something like an AI app or device would be great for, you know, generalizing and practicing throughout their day.

Okay, so Janine, is there any final thoughts that you have, anything that you would like to share with us before we leave today?

Yes, one more thing. So parents should never ask— parents, caregivers, and educators should never ask a yes/no question to their child unless they're willing to honor the no. And what I'm saying is like, don't say, hey, are you ready to brush your teeth? Are you ready to clean up? Can you say this? So don't ask a yes/no question unless you're ready to honor that no, because if they say no and you still tell them you have to do it, then you're going to lose their trust. So what you can do is offer choices. So changing the mindset of asking a yes/no question and moving on to choices, like, would you like to brush your teeth first or change into pajamas first? Or if you're going to have them work on articulation, instead of saying, can you say this, I might model it and I say, now it's your turn. So don't ask a yes/no question unless you're willing to honor that no.

Oh, you heard it right here on the CJ Moneyway Show. Do not ask a yes/no question. Give them choices. From Janine Tay. Hey, you have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with your host CJ Moneyway. We out of here. Peace.

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