What I Hear, I Learn!!

An anxious mother and her lively 4 year old This little boy has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. He uses one word to label things and both 1-2 words for need based communication and answering questions Mother’s language sounds like question and answers almost all the time. While Robin (name changed) sits to play with blocks, mother asks, which color is this? What shape is this? Robin tell me how many blocks are these? Let's count these blocks. When Robin comes into the kitchen, mother asks so which room is this? When Robin goes to pee, mother asks 'Robin which room is this?' OMG!! This is what Robin might think -  "If the whole day someone is asking me questions with an expectation that I answer correctly, I will go crazy. Who is going to answer correctly. I will say what comes to my mind first." For Robin not every moment can be a teaching moment.This will not give him a chance to think, explore and learn. His exposed language at present only has questions in maximum part of the day. Children learn from the language they are hear everyday. Asking questions now will mean his language later might sound like questions only. Later when Robin grows up and now has the language to use templates, phrases and sentences he will ask us questions. Which will irritate us. Then a language therapist will have work on helping him break this pattern and make his language more appropriate which has narratives, sharing information, expressing ones feelings, likes and dislikes, commenting on something, jokes, pauses, etc Mother was suggested to talk about the situation in terms or self talk and parallel talk. Self talk is when one is expressing ones own self, where as parallel talk is, when one is talking on behalf of the child. You are expressing for the child, how he would sound in  terms of tone, pitch and even the emotion in his voice. This way one can enrich the quality of his language.  For e.g. Mother asks him what time of the day it is? He says night and day as per the time and the conversation finishes. She was told to talk about the night time and say it is dark. I can see stars in the sky too. It is chilly too. Or in day time she can say "it is sunny today. i can see everything so clearly. It is bright light. Wow!! look at the clear blue sky." This way mother can share so many things with Robin. This way of talking will help Robin learn how a conversation sounds like. When mother is talking about the stars in the night, Robin might remember his poem 'Twinkle Twinkle little star' and they can sing it together. Then when mother elaborates on everything being so dark, we can play peek a boo and say, oh when my eyes get covered, I cannot see anything. Its so dark. Next time when we talk about 'Dark' we can discuss it like 'dark in the closet, dark room, dark in the blanket, dark sky, dark skin, what shines in dark? etc. Another example could be- when mother daughter is playing with blocks with Robin. She can construct something simple and share with Robin saying - "look Robin, I made an Ice cream with blocks. Let me lick my strawberry ice cream. U want to have a bite too. Come let's share. Ohoo!! The ice cream is so cold. It makes me feel cool." Robin will join in the play if he likes Ice cream. "Ok now let me make a burger with blocks. Yummy!! Look I made a cheesy burger. It has your favorite cheese and Chicken in it. You can eat it with some sauce. It will be very tasty. U want to eat a bite of the burger." While playing with blocks, this will lead to more sustained play rather than a question and answer session about colors and numbers. This will also help Robin learn ways to play with blocks, rather than just counting them or sorting them according to their color and shape. Such a way of conversation will expand your child's divergent and convergent thinking and also enrich his language many folds.  Let's try this and share feedback if possible!!