In this post I will focus on two areas –
1. Which language should be picked to start with
2. How to move from single word to two word phrases
Children on spectrum show less interest in interacting with other people and surroundings during their initial months of childhood, and thus they do not respond to their parents name calling, pointing things, or giving an eye contact.
Once the child gets vocal, he majorly learns by Rote, Repetition and Imitation, and faces difficulty in comprehension – both verbal & written.
When the child has developed some good amount of vocabulary (shared in my last post - https://drkhushboo.wixsite.com/segenmantras/post/building-vocabulary), the next step is to start working on building his language, which again is a skill to be taught.
Echolalia – When the child is picking up on language, and if we do not work on building it up slowly and step wise, echolalia starts increasing, mainly because the child cannot take so much of verbal input from you, his brain is unable to process all the information which ends up in Echolalia.
He may want to speak to you and answer you correctly, but fails to because it got difficult for his brain to process the loaded information, and he doesn’t know what exactly to answer.
Give a lot of exposure and teach with lot of patience, less language and more gestures.
Consider Which Language?
A very common question is which language we should focus on? English, Hindi or Mother Tongue? It is difficult to completely stick to one language as the child may be exposed to one language at home (mostly Hindi/regional language) while some other at school (mostly English).
START
In my experience, you can choose any one as Your Primary/Major Language which should preferably be the one being used in school, and in all the teaching and study material (English)
STOP
We often make a mistake when we start with Hindi/Mother tongue as our primary language and expect the child to pay attention and respond well in activities and games where we use flash cards, books and everything with English Letters.
Spoken and written language will go hand in hand for a child who has difficulty in processing, so please be careful in choosing your primary language.
FURTHER…
Do not wait for the time to come when your child is thorough with one language to introduce any second/local language, instead gradually start building on it with single words, preferably Nouns only, when your child has moved to two word phrases in primary language.
Like – If The child confidently knows around 200 single words in English, you now move on to two word phrases with those words and start telling him hindi words for the same nouns in his word bank. This would help in picking up the second language quickly, easily and almost in parallel.
e.g.
DO NOT – jump to two word phrases in the second language, as that would confuse the child and may increase his Echolalia.
Building Language: Moving from One word to Two word phrases
As spectrum kids tend to learn by imitating or copying, you start with instances where you do not have to ask questions.
e.g.
If the child is thirsty and is in some ways indicating to you that he wants water, do not come up with questions if you intend to teach him the two word phrase here. Just speak on his behalf, and add a gesture.
The child may try to reach out to the water bottle but unable to, or he may struggle to pick it up on his own, or approach you, or cry, or just come up to you saying the word ‘water’.
Stage 1
You don’t have to give him water right away, but speak on his behalf and say –
“Give Water or I want Water”, along with a hand gesture for GIVE and wait for him to REPEAT that, before you actually give.
Some children do that easily, while others resist, but the key here is only to make them repeat once, even if that ends up in tantrums, or crying.
The language will develop only when the need is generated, but at the same time, being firm you need to keep yourself calm, and don’t burden the child with a lot of talking.
Give him time to pick and process that only when he says “Give Water” he gets it, else not.
Stage 2
Next stage will then come when you only have to give a gestural prompt and no words, let the child come up with it. It may take some time, but don’t hurry, or lose patience, and end up prompting a lot.
Once the child picks up this concept of learning, the language development is much faster.
REMEMBER
DO NOT – jump into WH questions right away, like – What do u want? Do you want water?And expect the child to answer. This will only raise his anxiety.
Once the child knows what he is expected to say , which in this example is “Give Water” and he can respond the same way for many other things and instances, only then can you move to questions.
In my next blog I will be writing how to move further beyond this stage.