Talking with Toddlers

I did an interview with freelance writer Heather Larson, which resulted in a piece in Parent Map:

It starts earlier than you might think: Babies first begin learning language by listening to their mother’s voice while still in the womb.

“That’s why when a baby is born, she prefers to hear her mother’s language and her mother’s voice,” says Rick McKinnon, Ph.D., an early learning specialist in Olympia.

Reading, singing, telling stories and talking to your unborn baby give her a head start on talking, says McKinnon. By continuing to do so after birth, you’re not only encouraging her speech development, you’re developing a social connection and putting that child in a good position for acquiring literacy. Learning to read is directly related to a child’s verbal and auditory abilities, McKinnon says. “If a child has developed basic language skills by kindergarten, then when that child learns to read, the process will go smoothly.” Not only that, but when a child is able to talk, it can cut down on the frustration both babies and parents experience. If a tot can’t communicate with you, they may act out.

Nice work, Heather!

I've been working with a family on the issue of how to integrate thier autistic child into more activities and games that they like to play. So, we talked about how to adapt games so that she can better participate. There are a lot of games in the house that she seems to be interested in, and it would be great if she could play them in some way with her brother and/or adults.

One of the things that it is important to remember when adapting a game is that we have to let go of our own expectations about what we think the game is about. Remember: your child has no concept of the game, or most of the kinds of rules that most games assume. Thus, there is both a danger and an opportunity. First the danger: that our assumptions about the rules of the game will limit it so much that she won't be able to tolerate it. The opportunity: since your child has no preconceptions about the game, it is possible to restructure it quickly so that she can participate more fully (e.g., for a longer period of time). The longer she is able to play a game, the more social interaction she is experiencing, and the more that social awareness is strengthened. So, don't think of the game as a game, as much as a means to an end, which is exposing your child to the world of sharing, taking turns, noticing what others are doing, enjoying different ways of interacting.

I made a list of heuristics that might help when you're improvising a new way to play a game:

1. Forget the rules that are supposed to go with the game. Just look at the game as a set of objects that you could do anything with.

2. Listen to your child. She will often point or say something that will give you a clue about what she is interested in with any particular game. For example, today I brought down a puzzle that required matching pictures with words. I only selected the pictures because I thought she wouldn't be interested in the words. As I was setting up an activity (I think I was going to see if she would put the pictures in different categories), she said "Where's the words?" So, I stopped, and changed the game to a matching game between words and pictures (modified for her skill level).

3. Simplify the game. In order to simplify a game, you can:

• reduce the number of pieces,
• reduce the number of choices,
• isolate a specific part of the game (leave certain pieces out)
• use pieces or parts of other games.

4. Some games lend themselves to activities that are different than the original intention (e.g., Hullabaloo). The images in that game can be categorized according to different dimensions:

• animals
• food
• toys
• things that go
• people
• clothes
etc...

5. Make each turn very simple and easy to complete.

6. Give reinforcement for any positive participation.

7. Other activities that can be adapted into any game:

• counting
• naming
• matching
• building
• requesting
• rejecting
etc...

8. Use your imagination.

Try some version of this. Works every time.

Good Stories, Good Math

By Julie J. Rehmeyer

Spinning a good yarn may seem to have little to do with mathematics, but a new study suggests otherwise. Preschoolers who tell stories that include many different perspectives do better in math two years later than those who stick to one simple perspective. The researchers believe that the study may highlight a deep connection between mathematical ability and narrative skills.

Daniela O'Neill and her colleagues at the University of Waterloo in Ontario gave 3- and 4-year-olds the picture book Frog Goes to Dinner by Mercer Mayer. The wordless book shows a frog hopping around a restaurant, causing mayhem. The researchers asked the kids to tell the story to a puppet who'd never seen the book and measured the sophistication of each child's story. They also gave the children a test of general verbal ability. Two years later, they gave the children a test of academic achievement in a variety of areas.

Preschoolers who can tell stories from multiple perspectives often develop strong mathematical skills, according to research.

The scientists found that narrative ability in preschool was a good predictor of a child's later performance in mathematics. Simple measures, such as sentence length and diversity of vocabulary, had little relevance, however. The most important factor had to do with a child's ability to switch perspectives in the stories. For example, one child told the story as if the frog were the only character in the story, while another discussed the internal states of secondary characters, with comments such as, "The waiter was mad when the frog jumped in the soup."

University of Washington study: Block play helps toddler talk

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- A study reports that playing with toy blocks may help toddlers talk.

The study involving 175 one- and two-year-old children was conducted by researchers at the University of Washington and Children's Hospital.

They found that playing with blocks may be an effective way to promote language development.

The lead researcher, Dimitri Christakis, says playing together is the best way for parents to promote young children's development. Playing with blocks may have helped language development by replacing time spent watching TV.

The study was reported in the journal "Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine."

From uwnews.org:

Despite marketing claims, parents who want to give their infants a boost in learning language probably should limit the amount of time they expose their children to DVDs and videos such as "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby."

Rather than helping babies, the over-use of such productions actually may slow down infants eight to 16 months of age when it comes to acquiring vocabulary, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute.

The scientists found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them. Baby DVDs and videos had no positive or negative effect on the vocabularies on toddlers 17 to 24 months of age. The study was published today in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"The most important fact to come from this study is there is no clear evidence of a benefit coming from baby DVDs and videos and there is some suggestion of harm," said Frederick Zimmerman, lead author of the study and a UW associate professor of health services. "The bottom line is the more a child watches baby DVDs and videos the bigger the effect. The amount of viewing does matter."

I've got some free time, so I'm going to be re-writing and expanding the book. If you've used the program, and have some suggestions that you think should be included, now is the time to make your contribution. I welcome all manner of criticism that will make this a better tool for helping families with children who are experiencing expressive language delay.

Check out my new website that initiates my career as a Learning Specialist and Educational Liaison. There is a big need for consultation on educational plans and services, and I'm really looking forward to working collaboratively with families to get children the services that will help them learn and grow. I'm also really looking forward to working more with reading and literacy. There are so many children that are being unnecessarily diagnosed with dyslexia, when what they really need is a competent assessment and appropriate reading intervention.

Our 37 month old son is not as fluent as his peers and we are concerned. When he was about 30 months old his prechool teacher asked us if perhaps he had hearing problems because at times he would not respond when to addressed. An auditory evaluation ruled this out. In every other respect he seems to be thriving, but after speaking to a few people, we have become filled with fear that there may be something wrong. He has met and surpassed all of his development milestones but he is

a. not crazy about playing with others--he'll play among others, but prefers sticking to himself.
b. not talking in big sentences.

He will say "do you know where Papi is?" , lets go, come on, its snack time, and maybe one dozen or so other complete sentences, but for the most part, he'll say a whole bunch of jibberish and then the last word will make sense and we will know what he is asking for.

Just today, his teacher told me that he seems to be talking more but that sometimes they will ask him something about a project they are working on, and he will answer something completly off subject like "my shirt is blue"......I don't know what to think anymore.

Last month we had a much awaited for visit with a speech pathologist and the entire thing was a bust. She put him in a room with abunch of toys and after a few minutes started singing "clean up" and expected him to comply so they could start the testing portion. He flipped out. IN under 2 minutes he did every bad thing he's ever done-kicking, crying, screaming, throwing, full on tantrum. The more authoritative the therapist was asserting her need to have him comply, the more berserk he got.

The one good thing is that a child neurology consult last week was great. He reported that our son does not appear to have any neurological issues and that he has an ample vocabulary. (He used flash cards and either said "wheres the ? or whats this?....and he did great, but what does this mean in the big picture?

We are trying a bilingual(spanish/english) therapist next week, but if anyone has had a similar experience, I would love to hear your story. We are really afraid of what we are going to be told.

Alex's speech is getting much clearer and his vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds every day. The new games I developed for him appear to be working very well.  What seemed to make all the difference in the world was using the "I do, Daddy does, Alex does" model. Having him watch his Dad "learn how to talk"

"Dad, this is a dog, can you say.. Dog?"  (DOG) "GOOD JOB!!!!" "Alex, can you say dog?"

  While the speech therapist hasn't worked with him yet as she was ill this past Monday, I think that it is a possibility he might be caught up by the time he turns three or not that long afterwords if we keep going at this rate.

They recommended giving him 2 choices. Example "Alex, do you want Milk?" (showing him the milk) "or Juice?" (showing him the juice) The first few times Alex just pointed so I took that a step further as Alex just loves mimicking his parents actions. While Alex was watching I would turn to his Dad and say "Daddy, do you want Milk? or Juice?. When his Dad would say "Juice" I praise him and give him juice. Alex clapped for his Dad and acted like he wanted to try so I turned to Alex and repeated the excersize. The first time Alex pointed to the juice and said "Juice".

Alex is at or above all developmental levels with the exception of expressive language.  He is still beyond his level for receptive speech.  The new tool used determined he is approximately 7 months behind on Expressive Speech so he qualifies for Speech Therapy. He has no red flags for autism.

 Some strategies we were given today:

1. Do not anticipate his needs

2. Give him choices

3. Explore sign language more

4. sing songs with finger plays

5. Point to /label pictures in books

6. Use pretend play to encourage language.

 We're doing all but #6 so we'll be doing some pretend play soon. We were given some additional ideas for activities on 1-5. Alex does get sign language from me but usually does not repeat the signs often so we will make a concerted effort to do more sign language with him.

His goal is obvious: to talk - we will consider that goal achieved once he learned to communicate in words to adults and peers. I want him to catch up to at least his level before he is dismissed from speech therapy. I realize that this is a participatory process and my husband and I will be with him during all speech therapy sessions and will continue the excersizes we observe during his sessions between sessions.

This video was recorded about 10pm tonight following a 45 minute "play" session with some flash cards and 10 minutes of Coloring time. Alex did not appear interested in play time tonight like he usually is. My mother in law was staying with us and I'm not certain if his playtime mood was changed by that or not but I made the mistake of not setting my expectations with her before the play time and I think that confused things. The video below is about 2 minutes long and shows how Alex sometimes communicates with us. Not many breaks exist in his sounds like usual whenever he is tired. I cannot tell for sure if this is a form of "whining" or if he really thinks he is talking. He is looking at both his grandma and I while he was "talking".

The video below shows some clips of this evenings playtime along with his attempts at 'apple'.  This was taken about a half hour after his normal bedtime. He brought a book to me and showed interest in reading it so I took advantage of the time.

Tonight instead of me taking control of the book, I let him have it. Watching the video clips provided good feedback to how I can improve our playtime.

 1. Slow down my speaking more

2. Have Alex look at my mouth more when I'm speaking.

3. I never realized I refer to myself as 'mommy' instead of 'me' while playing with him. Is that a bad thing? I have no idea when I started doing that and not really sure if its a bad thing or not.

 

In my last post, I detailed a new game I developed with Alex.

Today we played the game again and he said 'apple' (it actually came out 'appa') He only said that word when pointing to the apples on the page. Not only did he say it once, he said it SIX TIMES!!!!! 

He also now tries to say 'balloon' when pointing to the balloons but says ' hoom'

Another new word is 'blue' when pointing to the color 'blue' in the book. he says 'ou' (its came out bu-ho) a couple of times.

 

 

Alexander likes to do everything we do. Vacuum (which he does believe it or not), we sometimes let him throw his diapers in the trash. He cleans up after himself, acts like hes shaving, brushes his teeth with help while we're brusing ours etc. I'm constantly surprised just how much information he takes in by watching us alone and repeats in action.  Thinking on his fascination with learning through observing I started making a game of it recently.

Sitting at the table during Alexanders alert time seems to be the best way to work on communication and to spend uninterrupted time with him.

I put him in an adult chair on a booster to the right of me, and his Dad directly in front of me.  During our time at the table the object is to keep all attention on one thing at a time.

Tonight we read 'Elmo's guessing game about colors'. Its one of his favorite books to read right now. I go through the book with him one page at a time. I read the words on the page slowly and then I point to each object in order they appear on the page naming each one.

Read more: