In this post I am detailing about emergence of speech and Vocalization. Most of these are centred around my personal experience and learnings...
1. Speech Therapy
My experience on speech therapy has not been very promising.
But just as we focus more on prewriting skills before jumping directly onto making our kids write alphabets and numbers, same applies to the development of speech.
Before working on the Speech development in particular, you need to achieve a good Sitting tolerance, eye contact, attention and compliance, after which you may work under the guidance of a good speech therapist with oro motor exercises, sounds, phonics, etc.
2. Diet
Experts would be able to guide better on this, as there is nothing proven, the most common one suggested is – GFCFSF, which again has mixed reviews and results. It has helped some kids immensely, some have shown a negative impact on health while some neutral.
My experience with Diet has been a little different one.
Around 1.5 yrs of age, we started observing some digestive issues with milk, and after consulting a renowned pediatrician in the city, he suggested not to give the child any milk, except the formula milk upto 2 yrs of age…. It is no less than a poison on digestive system, is what he said.
Stopping animal milk, helped a lot, and then a few months later, came the ASD diagnosis.
Our developmental pediatrician suggested, to try GFCFSF diet stepwise…. Stop one thing at a time, for a period of one month or so and note the changes.
Going gradual, we continued this process for around 6-8 months, but did not see any significant change on the good side, and hence continued with only NO MILK diet , and of-course negligible sugar in the diet.
All this while, homemade buttermilk and curd was on which caused no negative changes, rather helped as a good and natural probiotic.
There is no guaranteed result with the diet change, it’s a hit and trial and should be done gradually to understand the changes if it brings any.
DO NOT start or stop any dietary plan randomly. Start and Stop items one by one gradually noticing the difference in your child’s behavior and physiology. Your motherly feeling here would be your best guide.
3. Play @ Home
Look at your child when he makes sounds, talk back to him and pretend on having a conversation
Use gestures like waving, eating etc along with words coming onto the child’s eye level.
(your lip & hand movements should be at your child’s eye level)
Read a lot to your child, on apps, colorful books, laptop, etc.
Keep talking to your child but not like running a race rather in less and clear words, with pauses in between where you allow the child to respond in whatever ways he can (gestures, sounds, etc.) Preferably emphasizing only on Nouns in the beginning, then gradually adding verbs, adjectives and so on.
Arise the need for communication and not let things be easily available for the child.
(eg. When u know the child wants water, don’t just make it available or keep his bottles or sippers in reach.. let him communicate to you in some form – pointing, gestures, or some sounds if he can make)
4. Yoga
Yoga Poses that involve sound
Many of the animal inspired yoga poses encourage sound making, as It involves the oral muscles, and various movements with mouth, lips, tongue, teeth in different ways, which helps in the emergence of speech and later articulation and pronunciation.
1. Lion Pose
2. Dinosaur Pose
3. Buzzing bee Breath
4. Snake Pose
Do not make it a very strict therapy time and make the child do it forcefully. Suggested is to do it for the child for a few days as a demonstration and make it so much fun that your child himself wants to do it, imitating you.
You may make Cards of these poses, and include it in your routine for daily practice. Also, REPITITION is the key, Doing it for a day or two will not make any difference.
You can also build stories around each pose, and club it with OT….
Like – Once upon a time there was a Lion,
(you become a lion and walk like one) He lived in his Den, (then you sit in the Lion pose) and every morning when he woke up and roared like this (demonstrate the pose with sound)….. and so on……
Mantras – Even when the child is not verbal, Sanskrit Mantras strongly impact various centers in the Brain. Eexpose your child to Mantra Audios or sing/chant for him.
There are researches that prove the effect of Sanskrit on Brain Development.
Extract from the above page
How does the study of Sanskrit affect the brain?
A hallmark study by Dr. Hartzell, a Sanskrit proponent and postdoctoral researcher at Spain’s Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, showed the world a new picture. Dr. Hartzell and the team at India’s National Brain Research Center scanned the brains of 21
Sanskrit pandits and 21 control subjects.
“India’s Vedic Sanskrit pandits train for years to orally memorize and exactly recite 3,000-year-old oral texts ranging from 40,000 to over 100,000 words. We wanted to find out how such intense verbal memory training affects the physical structure of their brains,” said Dr. Hartzell.
The structural MRI scanning showed:
o Numerous regions in the brains of the pandits were dramatically larger than those of controls.
o Both the cerebral hemispheres had over 10 percent more grey matter.
o Significant increase in cortical thickness.
o The right hippocampus had more grey matter than the brains of the control subjects. The hippocampus plays a vital role in short-term and long-term memory and is a center for sound, spatial and visual patterns.
o The right temporal cortex, associated with speech prosody and voice identity, was also substantially thicker.
The increase in all these metrics corroborates with enhanced cognitive function.
It’s no surprise that children who learn Sanskrit display some marked parameters, including improvement in speech, logical thinking, and memory retention.
AUM Chanting - Make this an imitation activity in the beginning, or make it a part of games like –
Simon says do Namaste, Simon Says AUM or
If your happy and u know it Do Namaste and Say AUM
Gradually when your child shows an interest, take it up as a an individual activity and make him sit with folded hands in Anjali Mudra or Gyan Mudra
Now utter the 3 sounds one by one
A – aaaaaaaaaaaaa (Touch/Focus on belly)
U – uuuuuuuuuuuu (Touch/Focus on Chest/heart)
M – mmmmmmmm (Touch/Focus on Head)
You do not need a tongue to utter these sounds and even a person who cannot speak otherwise can utter these. For a child who is non verbal, can observe u doing it daily and will eventually pick up.
It not only is the best Sound practice to help in emergence of speech but the vibrations of AUM chanting has an Immense healing energy, which improves and enhances overall health, calms the emotions, quietens the mind, relaxes the body, and reduce any anxiety and stress the child is facing.
5. Homoeopathy
We turned to homoeopathy as a supportive system in combination with other therapies and supplements suggested by the Developmental Paediatrician, Being a homoeopath myself, I knew that this is not to cure autism but only to find relief in symptoms like – hyperactivity, sleep issues, anxiety, digestive issues, etc which once balanced will help in emergence of speech.
There were phases of many Ups & Downs but overall we had Great and quick results.
6. Sound Healing
Sound healing can help in various ways - from Speech to behaviors. In our personal experience we have used this at a later stage and it helped us finding solutions to many issues. I have put in all the details on my website page about the same - https://www.segencure.com/sound-healing
In my Next Post I will be writing about Building on the Vocabulary!