Helping Children Find Their Voice | A Speech Pathologist's Advice for Every Parent
- 10 minutes ago
- 14 min read
Thank you so much for having me on All Things Foster. Matt, this is lovely. And yes, my background is speech pathology. So I've been teaching in the public schools for over 30 years, helping kids and families, parents, homeschool, private school, public school kids, so that they can develop the speech language, listening skills that they need. In this space, I work with
The parents, of course, and those parents might be foster parents, but for sure, lots of regular parents, the parents, the caregivers, the daycare providers, the preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, and all the way through the high school. But the primary, of course, is the younger kiddos. So how do you, first off, let's talk about how does somebody, especially a foster parent, recognize that
Matt (24:55.074)
they need a speech pathologist. That is a very, very good question. And it's really high level. I sometimes, sometimes get surprised actually by that question. Yeah. Because we want our kids to grow up in such a way that they are understood, right? And then sometimes our kids start growing and we think, what are they actually saying? I don't get it. They sound messy or garbled or like they have marbles in their mouth. Or maybe they don't have any words at all.
Yeah. I think that in and of itself says you have a red flag. Yeah. And that's when you seek support to find out if you need a speech pathologist. Most of the time, I think that parents, if they were told, if they knew what to do, they would do it. And then their child doesn't stay in these habituated patterns over time.
then they grow on their own and they won't end up needing speech pathology. They will grow because moms and dads learn how to do it. And that is why I developed my own business called The Language of Play. Because I want to teach parents, what do I do at home so that we don't end up disabled? Because in the school system, speech pathology is a disability service. So you need to be far enough from the norm that you're considered disabled by this condition, then you get services.
in my business and after doing this in the schools for 30 years, I've been thinking, man, we got to give this information to parents. It shouldn't just be gate-kept and with us, but let's give our skills to moms and dads so that they don't have to wait. The doctors often just tell them, just wait and see. And wait and see isn't your best way to do it. The best way is just to spoon feed them as they go, just like you wouldn't wait for them to.
figure out how to tie their shoes on their own, you just teach them, right? You don't let them figure out how to ride a bike alone. You give them training wheels and you give them some guidance. You don't do this thing with tooth brushing or with, you know, like, and so when they're struggling to speak, let's get the skills and then do it for them. Show them, teach them. Yeah. And so you kind of make it a game out of it? Is that what I catch from your title? my title? Yeah. No.
Matt (27:16.128)
Yes and no. So yes in the sense that we have to connect with our children through something that they find enjoyable. So yes in that sense. No in the sense that when I say The Language of Play as my business name, what I'm talking about is the language that we use to connect with a mind that is being in that zone that is play. Play is how they operate. It's how they learn. It's how they grow.
They're playing for children is experiment, it's discovery. They're gonna try something out to see if it works. And then they go into a different room and they try the same thing again to see if it still works. They don't generalize, they don't really know a lot of these things. So they have to try things, something with you and you say no, but they're gonna go to somebody else to see if it's still true. And it doesn't mean that they're being disobedient, that they're being disrespectful. None of that is part of play. They're exploring.
They're trying to put the puzzle of life together. So the language piece is how do we relate to that brain in a way that brain is going to understand better. So it's not just playful logs and bricks and Legos and dolls and trucks. It's what I'm teaching is more of the mindset that moms and dads can get into that explores with their child what they're paying attention to.
and what language can you use so that they become immediately responsive. Right, yeah, okay. I love that. Yeah. That's great. So you have a podcast, right? I do, I do. What's it called? The Language of Play. The Language of Play. It's all called the same thing. All right, all right. And so on the podcast, what are you kind of going through these strategies and things? So my podcast is primarily for either guest experts in the parenting realm because we know that
When you're parenting, what you're talking about relates to everything, right? Speaking is the vehicle, language is the vehicle, listening is the vehicle, but all of life is included. So I have guest experts on that are in other spaces of child development, parent development. Also about half the episodes are solo, which is me teaching specific strategies.
Matt (29:38.412)
So your child doesn't say this sound, here's how you do it. Your child has no words, here's how you gain them. Your child has some words and not sentences, here's how you expand it. Here's a certain disability or disorder, let's talk about why you would look at it this way or that way and how you would help in this realm. So all of that real speech therapy stuff. Right, okay. And then people can find it where? At The Language of Play. Every podcast player. okay. How long have you been doing it?
Three years, I started January of 23. Awesome. So this is my third year. Yeah, wow. And so I've got 256 episodes. Wow, wow, so when do they post?
I'm pretty faithful on Thursday. I do have a stray Friday here and there, but most, I would say I'm 98 % Thursday at 9 a.m. Central time. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. So talk to a foster parent who's looking at a kiddo that's probably, you know, probably just came to them. I'll give you an example. My youngest came to us when she was 22 months old and she
The only word she could say was ticket, ticket, ticket. Like if you tickled her, was like, ticket, ticket, ticket. That was it, right? And so we were like, okay, this child at 22 months should be more advanced in her language than this, right? And so I know what we started doing was obviously we started reading with her all the time.
We would do things in the tub where we had the letters that stick to the side of the tub and do all the things and all the things that we could do. Of course, we've been parenting for a long, time. And so we kind of had an idea of some of the things that we needed to do for her. So talk to that foster family who's got a kiddo that they've just gotten into their home and they're thinking, okay, maybe there's a...
Matt (31:45.582)
speech issue here. How do they recognize that there's a need here? I love that. That is so important and it's so common. It's like really, really common among foster kids. And I think we mentioned this before we began that oftentimes foster children come because they have been neglected, which will cause speech to be delayed or they've had some trauma, which can
cause speech to be delayed. Or even if they're typically developing, the speech delay is not uncommon. At 22 months with one main word, that's severely delayed. okay, so here's what I would say to that family. First thing you do is you go slow and you go lovingly and you go gently and you receive this child as they are. You're not trying to fix them. You're trying to love them and build a foundation for them.
Yeah. So you are going to go solidly into what I described The Language of Play, which is you're going to explore who they are, explore where they're at, explore how they think. So your language that you're using is open, welcoming, inviting, so that they relax. Yeah. So that they can give you whatever they have within them, because many, many kids will have their language shut down because of an experience or a trauma.
So your first thing is that. Next, you're going to look at, okay, so maybe they need speech therapy, maybe they don't, but what am I going to do right now? And what you're going to do right now is you're going to fortify. So first you lay that calm foundation, that acceptance, so that the child's nervous system can start to, they may not trust right away because there's a lot of reactive attachment disorder stuff going on.
when they feel themselves start to trust, you can know that they're starting to be tempted to trust you by awful behavior. Exactly. Because they will react that honeymoon phase where they're like, okay, this is new, I don't know what to do. Now they begin to feel a little bit accepted and so they're gonna start pushing the boundaries. Right. And so when you see the boundaries being pushed, that's when you're going to, well, it depends on the child. When you're working with humans,
Matt (34:12.873)
Nothing is a hundred percent. So even though I say this, you use that intuition, you have your instincts to think, that true for this kid? But those kids that act the most unloving need love the most. So we know that when our kids come and they have the honeymoon phase and they're quiet and they're looking, their eyes are wide, they're not sure what to do. You're offering that open door, that acceptance, that love, that care.
speaker-1 (34:14.519)
I'm
Matt (34:40.022)
And of course, what we wanna do is help them trust us. If they have the spazzing out, like doing the opposite of what you say, getting really mad, we know that's probably reactive attachment disorder and they're tempted to trust us. So in a way, it is a very good signal for you, even though it's a very difficult problem to get past. Okay, so now you're in that zone or you may not be in that zone. And that's where I would say, seek some help. Don't try to do that one on your own. That's a tough one. And there's lots of help out there for that.
And then when you get into the next phase and which is gonna, and I shouldn't even call it phases because everything overlaps. It's all overlapping. So another segment of this would be that now you're interacting with them and you want to help them deliver good sounds to you, good words to you in a way that you know what in the world are you talking about? What do you want? I want to know what you think and feel. And so in as much as they're able,
We want them then to have more words. And I love that you used books because when you use books, especially for kiddos that have trauma or other emotional issues, they don't have the threat of me and you. There's this triangular position where you're both looking at the book and the book becomes a place to deflect any of that anger or frustration.
So, and then they know that, well, it doesn't matter if that's a book, you know? And then oftentimes kids can talk about the book and grow with a book because it's not face-to-face with a human. And so you're doing that with tub, you said. And then I would say you do that with every aspect of life. And it works particularly well when it's something that they like, that they want. If they want a popsicle.
and you're gonna try to get them to say popsicle. Now that's a hard word, but depends on the age, depends on the child. And you're going to give them something that they're gonna say as they're getting it. Maybe you're just gonna try to have them say thank you. And you just hold it until they say thank you and you tell them you need to say thank you before you get it. And then they hold it and they grip and they pull. And then you just say, all you need to do is say thank you. And then you give them a sign, hand over hand. So you actually do it for them. Good job you did it. And you let go and let them have it.
Matt (37:03.382)
You know, usher as much as you can. Yeah. I love that. I love that. so you, so you have this business. Do you do try to like work with families kind of wherever they're at? They can do this with you. You know, I'm in Texas, so the family could come to you and get your help over zoom, that kind of thing. So yeah.
In my hometown, I work with people in their homes. The majority of people I see are on Zoom. And the reason that they like that is because they can record, I record the interview, the time that we're together. And then I send that to them. So they always have a recording. They can go back and they can rehear our coaching call and they can understand, yeah, that's what she meant. I forgot. So that's always available for them. And then...
Certainly, if you want to fly me to Texas, I can work one on one with you. But you got to fly me there for that. Wow. so you can get... when you're doing these Zoom calls, you're working with the parent to get the parent to have the knowledge and the skills to help the kiddo. Exactly. Whether you're a grandparent, a foster care parent, daycare provider, kindergarten teacher, preschool teacher, or the parent. I am writing all of my
my words in my website, my, you know, all the, that I do with a parent in mind, the person who works directly with the child. And the reason that I decided to do this is because in my field in speech pathology, we're about 60 % staffed in the United States. So even in the schools, if your child gets speech pathology first, they have to get far enough from the norm, which means they've been struggling for a long time. And then they get into program and then, you know,
Like in my position, I might have 60 kids if I work full time. Sometimes more, seldom less. And it's really hard to do great work at 60 kids compared to what you can do when you've got 35. And there aren't enough speech paths to change that. So the only way to do it is to group kids, which means there are fewer practices, because every kid needs to practice in a group. So your speech pathologist is working really hard
Matt (39:24.374)
And the burnout in this field is also growing rapidly. So I started thinking, what can we do to really change the problem, which is access, right? There isn't enough people. And so I started thinking, well, give away the expertise to the people who are going to do it because parents don't need to know everything in this field. They only need to know what pertains to my child and what is the next step. And that's what I do. I say, you know, have big conversations with mom and dad and then,
get an understanding, okay, then we're gonna just start our coaching and then I find out what they're dealing with right now. And then we'll talk about, here's your next step. And then they do that for a week. And then we come back and we say, how did it work? What worked well, what didn't work? And we either tweak it or add the next step. Most of the time it's just add the next step because I like to give just a little bit so that you, as a mom and dad, you're gonna practice for a week because this is a two level learning, isn't it? You need to learn. And then you're going to learn it well enough
that your child can learn. So it's two levels of learning. And so it takes time. And it takes a lot of repetition for both you and for your child. so it's a small step that you both practice together during the week. And then you build a foundation of, I get this. And by the time you've completed like three months, your foundations of how to interact.
get solid so that you start learning, I can spread this into meal time. can, even though we learned it with speech, I can spread it into bath time. I can spread it into bedtime because it's, you know, not only are we learning specific strategies for how to change speech, you're learning how to connect with that young brain in the way a young brain understands. Yeah. And there's such important work. I know that in, in, our area,
I talk to lots of foster families who need a speech pathologist, but they're on a six month wait. I'm sure that that's the issue across the country that what speech pathologists are there and available, there's just not nearly enough. So I can definitely see the value for that.
Matt (41:45.678)
Yeah, well, that is exactly why I decided to do this because I want to get the word out. You don't have to be an expert. You just need to know what your child needs. Yeah. And when you talk to me or any of us speech paths, when you talk to us, we can tell you what the next step is. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, I love it. I love it. So tell us one more time where people can find you. The Language of Play The Language of Play yep. And so I've got it.
The website is The Language of Play The podcast is The Language of Play. And if you Google The Language of Play, you will find me. remember that, guys. And we'll link it down in the show notes, obviously. But The Language of Play, podcast, website, coaching, if you need that one-on-one coaching that, like I said, many, many kiddos that are in foster care are delayed. I mean the research shows that just the
the removal and being placed in that first home is a six month developmental and behavioral regression. And so when you do that, their speech is gonna regress as well, right? And so, yeah, it's just such a huge need. So maybe you need to listen to the podcast and follow along and try to get some stuff that you can use to help these kiddos
develop that language a little bit better. I am starting a membership group. Maybe by the time this comes out, it'll be up. I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure out how to do it tech-wise. What I want to do is a couple of times a month have a lower cost membership group where people can pop in and just, you know, for parents that just want to explore. They want to figure out which direction do I go or ask a specific question.
But I haven't figured out the tech on that. Maybe by the time this episode is out, it'll be figured out. But all of that will be available on my website as it's coming along. Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you. Thank you for your experience and just coming on and sharing with our audience. And the work that you're doing is just super important. Thank you. Yeah, it's very, very gratifying. There's nothing quite like watching a family change when
Matt (44:07.926)
a child learns to communicate. It's so satisfying. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, again, thank you so much. Guys, make sure and like, subscribe, share. Episodes are super important and we'll catch you on the next one. Thank you. Thank you.
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