Dr. Barbera: Do you have a child or client with less than five words, that you can rely
on?
Maybe the child has some cop-out words, but you don't know how to get the child speaking
more.
Today, I'm going to discuss the number one way that you can get your child or client
speaking more, starting today.
Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Barbera, autism mom, board certified Behavioral Analyst and best selling
author.
Today, I'm going to talk about the main way we can start to get words heard more frequently
and to develop the ability for the child to echo our words and to expand their language
even further.
So the number one thing you can do starting today, is limit your language.
Instead of talking to the child in full phrases, really hone down on one word and even one
syllable, two syllable words.
So, instead of saying, "Say hi to Johnny," you just say, "Hi, hi, hi."
I recently did a workshop at the ABAI conference and I had Sue, actually the woman who translated
my book into Chinese, attend the workshop.
She came up to demonstrate how important this concept is, by speaking full sentences in
Chinese to me, which I obviously I didn't understand, and then just one word phrases.
So take a look at this video.
Pretend that I am the child and Sue is going to bring the glass towards me and in Chinese,
she's going to say, "Here's some cold water," in Chinese.
Okay, so go ahead.
Say it in Chinese, as loud as you can.
Right.
Sue: Okay.
Here is some water.
Dr. Barbera: Okay.
All right.
So, let's do that again.
Just the whole thing in Chinese.
Dr. Barbera: I don't know what part of that is water, right?
So, I can have immediate echolalia, so when you say, "Here's some water," to a child and
they just echo, here's some water or roll the ball to me and then you roll the ball
to them and they say, "Roll the ball to me," and then we wonder why kids have echolalia
issues.
So now I want you to just use one word and it's water, but it's in Chinese.
Dr. Barbera: So now you can say it three times.
So I'm thinking, I'm going to need water sometime here.
The whole phrase, I don't know that water ... just say, "The water's really cold, it's
good, you'll like some."
Say that all in Chinese.
Dr. Barbera: And what's the ? That's not water.
What was the last word you said?
Sue: You'll like it.
Dr. Barbera: You will like it.
So I just echoed, you will like it and that's what kids do when they echo, they echo the
end, because, they're used to people ... like I don't know what word is important.
So for everything we do in early learning programs, we are going to say one word, we're
going to say it three times, unless the child than echos it sooner.
And that's one of the really big ways we're going to.
So, let's take another example, let's say we're going to go up these steps.
So you say, "Let's go up the steps to the stage."
Can you say that.
Dr. Barbera: Okay.
So, I have no idea what up is.
So, now I just want you to say, "Up, up, up," in Chinese.
Dr. Barbera: Which is up, up, up.
So I now remember the water is ...
Dr. Barbera: And the up is ...
Dr. Barbera: But, it's still ... I'm going to have to have that repeated many times and
we don't want to be bombarding kids with all kinds of language.
If we're going to pick targets, then it would really behoove us to pick like three to five
words, three to five targets at a time, until we master that and we can go onto more words.
But, we always want to start with a man and we always want to start with short length
of utterance.
Thank you.
I hope you now understand the importance of breaking your words down throughout the day
and talking to minimally vocal children or non-vocal children, with only one word utterances
throughout the day.
Especially, for the words that have been heard before or target words.
For more information, you can always visit my website at marybarbera.com.
And if you like this video, please share it wherever you're watching, leave me a comment,
give me a thumbs-up.
And I'll see you next week.