Ep. 12: 3 Fun Ways to Facilitate Language Development w/ Hearing Specialist Angie

Episode Transcript

Angie   

You'll always have that next milestone in mind. Celebrate the milestones that they're doing now and don't give up. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Hi, you're listening to the rare life. I'm your host Madeline Cheney. And today we have episode 12. A little side note before we jump into the episode, I would like to invite all my listeners--special needs parents and others included--to share what you've thought of Season 1 so far and your favorite takeaway, which might be something you've been able to implement and had success with, a thought from a parent that resonated with you, or any kind of meaningful experience you've had with the episodes you've listened to in Season 1. Please do that in the form of a review on either iTunes or if you are not an iTunes listener, you can send it in through the contact form on my website, therarelifepodcast.com and I will put a link to that in the show notes. For the Season 1 finale episode in September I will read a few of these and respond. 

Alright, back to episode 12: Three fun ways to facilitate language development, with Kimball's hearing specialist Angie. And before you tune out because you're thinking, Oh, my child is hearing so this doesn't relate to them. These are some pretty general tools that apply to virtually every child learning language. And the great part too, is that they're fun and probably something you're already doing. She just gives us the why behind them, and also gives us pointers and how to make it just more effective for their language development, which I really appreciate. We love Angie. She is a beloved member of our therapy and medical tribe. If you're wondering what I'm talking about when I refer to a medical and therapy tribe, I recommend tuning in to Episode 11, which came right before this with a mom Kari. Angie entered the scene very early on with Kimball. He was only about two months old because we caught his hearing loss very early on. She works for the Utah schools for the deaf, and she visits children from zero to three and helps them learn language which is why she is a great person for this task to teach us about language acquisition. Angie is a fantastic teacher. At first she started out as our cheerleader to get those hearing aids in. When he was really little, we had them in probably a cumulative 20 minutes a day. Because that's what we could handle. At this point, she comes prepared with lesson plans and she meets us where we are and she is just she is a fantastic teacher. And so I'm excited that she gets to teach all of us today, and I get to share a little bit of Angie with you. Angie is a lover of swimming and all things Disney. So without further ado, let's get on to our conversation. 

 

Angie, thank you so much for being here today. 

 

Angie   

You're welcome. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

I'm excited to share with the world your wisdom and your knowledge to help facilitate language development in children. We've really benefited from having you as our therapist for Kimball. 

 

Angie   

Thank you so much. I love working with Kimball and I'm glad to be here. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

So I'm going to start out by asking you, how would you define your purpose in your work as a therapist to children that are hard of hearing or deaf. 

 

Angie   

So as you mentioned, my work is with children who have hearing loss that are either deaf or hard of hearing, from age birth to three. And during that time, brain development is the most important because their brain grows so fast during the zero to three period. And one of the things that can be affected the most when kiddos have hearing loss is language. And so my purpose and the passion that I have for doing this is to make sure that those children have access to language. It may seem like something that children would gain naturally, but it is a little bit more difficult for kids with hearing loss. And so the goal for me is to make sure that the parents know how to provide access to language for their children. Depending on what a parent chooses, they need to have access to that, whether it's by wearing their devices like hearing aids or cochlear implants to make sure they have access to spoken language, or learning American Sign Language so that they can have access to that as well. And so, because language development is so important, I've got three tools that I want to discuss that are really great for facilitating language development. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Awesome, let's get into it. 

 

Angie   

Okay. So, I guess to kind of sum this up, if I were to say the three things that I feel like are the best for developing language in young children, whether they have a hearing loss or not, those three things are books, songs, and the third one is non talking and non sound toys. So the first one is books. I love books. children's books are so fun, and they are so good in so many different ways for little ones, and I want to talk about a concept that is called book sharing. Think about that rather than book reading to a young child under the age of three. So book sharing is more of an interactive process between a parent and a child, a baby at a younger than three years old is usually not going to sit there and listen to you read the whole script of a book, right. And so the idea of book sharing is a lot more interactive with a baby, it's a lot less structured and formal. What this means is, is you have your child close to you, open a book, and then whatever the child is interested in, then that's what you talk about and point out. So you're talking about the pictures, you're talking about what's happening in the book. You're telling stories in your own way. You're using fun, enjoyable language the child loves to hear, you're not focused on we have to read every word on the page. It's all about let's talk about what's fun and interesting. And if the child skips three pages in the book, no problem. We don't have that page. We don't worry about oh, we need to go back because we've missed a couple of pages.  

 

Madeline Cheney   

So recently Kimball has just started to enjoy looking at books together. And I had experienced that where we were book sharing Brown Bear, Brown Bear. And it was so cute because we opened the book. And then he just started flipping through. And I could tell he was looking for something. I was like, Okay, I'll let him kind of like flip through it. And he got to the page where it has like "Children, children what do you see?" and he wanted to look at the faces, it was really cute. And so he was pointing at them. And he even like, right now we're working on body parts as our, target vocabulary that we've been working on. And so it was a really great opportunity to talk about their eyes. So we pointed out their eyes and he'd point at his eyes and try to say it and so we stayed on that page for like, I don't know, most of the time we were looking at books, it was a great opportunity to use the target vocabulary. For anyone listening that may not know what a target vocabulary is, how would you describe that? 

 

Angie   

So target vocabulary is taking a word that you want your child to learn, and using it in repetition. So using it over and over and over and over again, but doing it in meaningful sentences. So we don't want to ever give a child a word and then just say it over and over like we're a broken record because that has no meaning and it's not natural for them. So you take that word and you use it again and again in natural sentences. An example of that, that you just gave from the book when Kimball was looking at the pictures of faces. You know, your target vocabulary word may be eyes and so you say, Oh, you see the eyes. Where's Kimball's eyes? Yeah, you pointed to your eyes. That's right. Look, this person has blue eyes, or you have blue eyes. So again, you're saying the word but you're using it in meaningful sentences.  

 

Madeline Cheney   

Right, and giving them some context to how it's properly used. Right? 

 

Angie   

Exactly. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yep. I've recently also when we're doing books, we may start with him facing away from me on my lap, and then I will just switch him around. He's facing me, where before because of his vision issues and stuff, he would only look at me if he could see my face. But he's gotten to the point now where he's so interested in the books that he will look at the books, but then he can look at me and point at my eyes or I can point at his eyes. And that feels like an even more like intimate experience with him while we're book sharing. 

 

Angie   

Absolutely, definitely, because of their closeness, they're able to hear so much better. We know that that's a big, big issue with our kiddos with hearing losses, they need to be close to a source of someone speaking so that they can hear that clearer. And so for them to be able to sit right next to you, for him to be able to make eye contact with you. It not only helps the bonding, but it also helps develop those connections in their brain for making eye contact and using multiple sources to understand the context of what you're talking about, as well as to be able to hear better. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yeah, that totally makes sense to me. I even feel like you taught me something about him facing me during books a long time ago when we first were introducing this. And so I was like, maybe this is my idea, but maybe it was Angie's and she told me and I'm remembering it now. Either way, it's been great. It's been a really awesome experience with him. 

 

Angie   

Yeah, that's great. And one of the things too is when you're thinking about using ASL with your child or American Sign Language, a child needs to see you in order to do that, because so many of the signs are there on your face or close to your body. And so to have a child facing you so that you can show them a sign, it is even more important for kiddos that are deaf using ASL. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Right. Right. And I think that's probably when you brought that up was when we were signing more with Kimball. And it's, I mean, even just having the book in between us so it can rest laying on our laps. It's like that even opens up your hands more to be able to do the signs. 

 

Angie   

Right. Yeah. So there is there is another thing that's really important when reading books with children is that they do need to be exposed to literacy and to print from the very beginning. And even though we know they can't read words or even recognize letters under the age of three, it's really important to give them the exposure to the print. And so even though we're not reading the words with them specifically, you know, one by one, still just helping them to see that there is print on the page. And once in a while pointing to a word, if you read a word on the page, or things like that, just to help them to see that, oh, it's there. They're starting to recognize it. And the more and more we read books with children at the young age, the more and more we help them to become book lovers as they get older. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Right, and I think especially if you're doing book sharing, instead of just having this strict regiment, so then they're like, This is fun! This is a great time and may have a positive association with books. 

 

Angie   

Absolutely. Because when they start to read it becomes hard. And so we don't want kids to think Oh, now I have to read and I don't like it, but I've had such good experiences with it in the past, it becomes more fun for them. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Right, right. Are there any types of books or authors in particular that you would recommend that are more conducive to learning language or book sharing? 

 

Angie   

Definitely, just in general books that have a lot of pictures, a lot of color, things that aren't quite as busy. You know, simple pictures are really good. You mentioned Brown Bear, Brown Bear. That's one of my very favorites for children for many reasons. One, because it's very simple. It has simple pictures. It's just one large picture on a page. But also, if you're using the words in the book, saying those it's kind of a song. It's kind of a singsong rhyme that you're using and you're repeating those words over and over again. Eric Carl is one of my favorite authors, when it comes to books. He writes things like from Head to Toe, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, those are all books that he does that have simple short phrases and kind of in a singsong way, and have very fun and specific objectives for children. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Awesome. That's so great. 

 

Angie   

Another one that I really love is Sandra Boynton. They're so fun. There's fun sounds and fun pictures and a lot of rhyming in her books as well. The other one I would recommend is Dr. Seuss. I mean, that's just kind of a classic. But, again, those rhyming words and the fun, different weird words that he uses. It's a great thing for our kiddos to be able to hear different sounds in different ways. And so we even though some of it can be nonsense words or words that don't really make sense. It still helps children hear those different sounds and so they're really really fun books as well. Another one I would recommend are books that have flaps. Those are fun because they can touch them, they can play with them. And you can follow their lead. I know you guys love looking at flap books, right? 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Kimball's like exclusively a flap-book child like, a little funny story. So we were looking at a book that did not have flaps. And we do this little game where we say Knock, Knock Knock open, which Angie taught us. And so we're looking at that book. And he was trying so hard to open flaps that were not there, on this little raised part on it. And he was Knock, knock, knock, open! and looking at me like, Come on mom open the flap! And I was like, we'll move on to a flap book because there are no flaps on this book. It's a great way to make the book more playful. 

 

Angie   

Definitely. And what a great way to follow his lead. Let him kind of decide where he wants to go with just talking about what he's interested in. He wanted flap books! That's great.  

 

Madeline Cheney   

So how would you say that songs facilitate language development in children? 

 

Angie   

So songs are really really important for kiddos and again, not just for kiddos with hearing loss because there are a lot of benefits to songs. Some of those benefits include having your child listen to music helps with listening. So for kiddos that have hearing aids or cochlear implants, when we do songs, we use a lot more pitches, we go high and low, we use more fast and slow type of beats. And those kind of things are really important for kiddos to learn to listen. And it helps them with speech as well. Because when we sing, we hold out those sounds a little bit longer. And so they can hear those a little bit better. So it's really important for kids that are listening too. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yeah, I think you can accentuate different words you're working on like we're working on the P sound for Kimball. There's a song that we do where the bubble pops, and you clap at the same time. It's like the punchline of the song at the very end and he's just waiting for that. And then he is way more likely to imitate that because it's fun, and you have a little hand gesture with it. It's been a really fun way to incorporate that the sound that we're working on. 

 

Angie   

That's great. And that brings me to another point to where he anticipates that just like you said, he knows that that's coming. If you were to do that in regular speech, he would never know that that was coming. It's something that happens with songs where, because they're the same every time and they have the repetition of those words, he knows when you say an amount of words or use a certain tone, that that word is coming. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Right, right. And he's listening. He's looking at me like, Oh, she's gonna say it. 

 

Angie   

Yeah, that makes it so fun for them. But it's also a really good skill of helping them to anticipate what's coming next. So then the last couple of benefits, there's a lot of them but a couple that I want to highlight is that it also helps children with learning to speak. So an important part of singing is learning how to control our breath. And when we sing, we have to hold our breath a little bit more. We have to control how we're going to release it, and to speak, we use our breath a lot more quickly. And so by singing it helps them to build those muscles in their lungs and learn how to use better breath control with that as well. So I have a list of some of my favorite songs. You mentioned one of them which is called Tiny Tim.  

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yeah. that's totally what we were singing with him! That's so funny. For those listening like, she's not the one who taught us that one so that's so funny that that's on your list. 

 

Angie   

Yes, yes, that is my favorite. Yeah, I love that one because it does have that anticipation of the popping the bubble. So Tiny Tim is a really fun one. I love the rhyme three little monkeys swinging in a tree, that one is because you get really, really soft. And then you come up and you get loud and you put a lot of emphasis on that word snap. And so it's again, an anticipation thing. They get really excited for it as well as there's a lot of emphasis on certain sounds that help them to listen better, right. So other songs that are very familiar in our culture are with things like wheels on the bus, Old MacDonald had a farm is a really great one, Twinkle, twinkle little star Head, shoulders, knees and toes, different songs like that, that are just songs that many of us grew up with, you know, those simple children's songs. They're so great for helping them to learn language and listen and create that bond with you. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yeah, that's so interesting are those are such a big part of our culture for hundreds of years singing nursery rhymes to our children. And we're helping them learn language through it. So that's an awesome benefit to it. 

 

Angie   

That's right. There's also something on YouTube that is called Super simple songs. And it's really, really fun, it's really fun to look at them. You can learn some new songs, get some new words, and they're really simple. And so they repeat those words over and over again, as well as they're just simple pictures and so children usually love watching them which we'll talk about in a minute that I don't love having children watch those iPads or those you know YouTube videos for very long, but to have you learn it and then teach those songs to your children are really fun as well. And it gives you new ideas for new songs to learn. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yeah, and super simple songs, we listen to on Spotify. So yeah, that's an easy way we like even last night we were playing while the kids were in the bath and Wendy, Kimball's older sister, requested super simple songs while they were in the bath, which we don't normally do, but I brought my phone in there and we listened to the one little finger going, tap, tap, tap. And so Kimball was watching me. And it was great because I was like, Okay, this is another one where it talks about body parts. So we were able to like have the finger tap the head and the nose and the feet and he had his little finger, trying to isolate, and he was really watching. So I agree with that. I really love those songs. They're really great. 

 

Angie   

That's perfect. And I love that too because we talked earlier about target vocabulary. And so you brought that in again to about how Okay, we're working on body parts we can not only can use books to help learn that target vocabulary, but there's songs too that can help with that. Just like the one you mentioned, or even Head, shoulders, knees and toes, you can usually find a song to go with the target vocabulary that you're using aswell. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yeah, yeah, I think that's the beauty of having a target. So you're not like I'm trying to teach them all language where if you have a specific group of words that you're trying to teach them, it's on your mind, and it's easy to pull it up like, Oh, well, we could bring it up in whatever context you're in and use it more regularly.  

 

Angie   

Yep, I like that.  

 

Madeline Cheney   

All right. What about those nontalking non sound toys?  

 

Angie   

Okay, yes. So this is the third strategy that is really important for helping little ones to learn language. As I mentioned earlier, it's really important to know that the brain is developing extremely rapidly during the first three years. And part of the importance of brain development is getting the social interaction and the face to face. Language experiences, be it spoken language or sign language, it doesn't matter. But they have to have those in person contact for their brain to develop in a normal and natural pattern. Now, a lot of things we see are toys that have sounds, play music, do talking, there's a lot more turned to iPads and phones to let children watch videos where they may be educational, and they may be learning something in them. But it's not that one on one face to face social interaction with an actual human. Now, the reason why this is the most important is because especially for our kids that have hearing aids and cochlear implants, when you're listening to something that is recorded, so anything that's coming from a speaker, it could be a toy speaker, it could be a phone, an iPad, a computer, anything that's not actually coming from a live human is going to change the way that that sound is. And for kids with hearing loss, they need to hear an entire range of pitches or what we call frequencies. And so from the very lowest pitches to the very highest, well, when you hear something that is not a human in front of you, those pitches are going to be restricted. And so it's a lot more difficult for them to hear. So even though we may think, Oh, this is teaching great vocabulary, those children aren't hearing it as well as they hear you when you're speaking to them right next to them. So the importance of that human interaction is overlooked a lot when we look at children between the ages of zero to three, and they need for their brain development to be able to have that eye contact, they need someone to be speaking to them. Just like you said, when you look at books with Kimball and you're talking about the body parts of the children's faces, he is learning so much more and gaining so much more in his little brain, because he's using so many more skills. Senses of touch because he's, he's touching you. He's touching the book. He's seeing you. He's hearing you. He is developing so many more brain connections in a positive and healthy way than he would be if you were watching a video on your phone or on your iPad. And I'm not saying that all of it is bad. I'm not saying that there's there aren't times and places for those things. But when we look at our interactions with children, we should make sure that there is a heavy heavy emphasis on in person talking in communication versus them listening or watching things that are coming from a speaker.  

 

Madeline Cheney   

And one of the first principles that you taught me was about the distance that these children, if they have some hearing, that is optimal for them to be able to hear clearly what we're saying. Can you explain a little bit about that? I felt like it was really important to know. 

 

Angie   

Definitely. This is really important, too, for kids that have hearing aids and cochlear implants, because they utilize microphones in their little devices, to get the speech into their brains. And just like when you're using a microphone in any situation, you think about if you hold it too close to you, if you put it right next to your mouth, you're going to distort the sound. But if you pull it too far away, then you're going to take away some of the quality of that sound. And if you're in a big auditorium, or a large group and you have somebody speaking in a microphone, if they're not doing it optimally, you're probably not going to hear very well what's being said. It's the same for our little kiddos. And so the more distance or the further away that they are from us, the less opportunity their microphones have to pick up our speech. Also, if you have background noise or other noises going on that are part of what you're saying to your child. Like for example, you have the TV on or you have a washer and dryer going or water running or a fan going any of those things are what we consider background noise. And if those things are happening at the same time, the further away that your child gets from your voice, the more that background noise is going to compete with your voice. So they're going to have less and less quality of hearing. And so that's why it's really important that you stay close to them when you're talking to them. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Right. Is it six inches to six feet is that what... 

 

Angie   

Three feet. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Six inches to three feet is the optimal distance, which I did kind of go crazy at the beginning where I was like, I have to be within this space of him at all times. And then I was like, no don't, like it was nice to be like kind of calm down a little bit. But to know that I think is helpful so that if you're having a playful interaction with them, and you want them to be picking up on your language, you'll make sure you're not talking to them across the room. Or talking into their ear, which I don't think is as likely but just be aware of that is I think a really important thing. 

 

Angie   

Right. And I think that's a good point too, especially when we bring up the issue of background noise because that's where those sound toys come in. If you you're sitting with your child playing with them. And you can still be within that optimal distance, say within one to three feet of them and they're playing with a sound toy. You may be trying to talk to them, but that sound is so competitive with your voice, they're usually not going to be able to hear your voice over the sound of the toy. So you may be using great language with them and saying, Oh, yeah, that's a great toy. It's this and this and describing qualities of it and talking about what he's doing with it and things like that. But if it's constantly making sound or playing music, they're not getting that quality language that they should be getting because it's competing with that sound of the toy. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

They have to work so much harder to be able to hear you over that. 

 

Angie   

Exactly, exactly. And there are a lot of toys out there that you can use that don't make sounds. And they can be as simple as things like blocks, where you use building blocks. These can be soft blocks, they can be rubber, they can be wooden. I love Duplo blocks, because they connect and they're easier for kids to connect. So those are really fun. I love toys like Mr. Potato Head. Again, it points out that you were working on body parts with Kimball. What a great way to work on body parts is to have all of them scattered around and then putting them in the potato. It doesn't make sound and so it's a great opportunity to talk about those body parts and let them experiment with them. Put them where they want, it doesn't matter if they put them in the right places.  

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yes. Oh, awesome. I love that. 

 

Angie   

Some other ideas include using just animals and vehicles, simple farm animals that you can buy from even the $1 store you know plastic animals with a barn using those are fabulous because you can use the sounds for the animals, the names for them. You can talk about how they move what they eat, you can do a lot of dramatic or pretend play with animals. And the same with vehicles. They all have a sound that goes with them that you can use like for example the car saying vroom, vroom, vroom. Other really great toys that are not sound toys would be like babies, dolls and stuffed animals. Those are a great thing to practice that pretend play that dramatic play and also talk about the care for the baby or the stuffed animal. Talk about body parts again, you know, getting baby dressed, putting the clothes on, what a great way to take a routine that you already do with your child. Like getting them dressed in the morning or at night when they're going to bed, doing it with a doll and helping them to see that that's something that happens with everyone. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Right, right. I love that and making it a fun game. 

 

Angie   

Exactly. Yeah. Puzzles are always fun. Balls are very fun. You can do a lot of turn taking with balls, throwing it back and forth, rolling them back and forth, putting them in containers, dumping them out. There's a lot of experimenting that a child can do with balls. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Yeah, your narrative as you're going through that can be full of language that you're working on.  

 

Angie   

Absolutely. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

That's awesome. Well, great. So I would love to conclude with a little pep talk of sorts to parents that have children that are struggling with acquiring language, whether it be because of hearing loss or otherwise, what would you say to parents that are feeling really discouraged about this? 

 

Angie   

I think there are three things that I would recommend or say: the first one is just watch for those little signs of communication. Because children are so good at communicating. Even if they don't have words or use actual language. They still communicate, whether it's through looking at you or looking at what they want, whether it's a slight movement of their hand or reaching or pointing towards something, whether it's moving their body towards something that they want, whether it's turning away because they don't want something. All of those things are tiny little steps of communication that are really important to look for. And if your child is doing those things, and most children do, then celebrate those things, and you can build on those things. Those are your foundational building blocks to be able to use language with your child. So find those little things that they do to communicate. The second one is to use a lot of repetition. We've talked about this a lot today, in songs and books and rhymes. And when you're playing with toys, use those target vocabulary, say those words over and over again, a child needs to hear a word many, many times before they can actually understand it, and then say it. And so by giving a meaningful communication in sentences, but using a lot of repetition, they will pick up on it better than if we were just to use communication randomly. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

That makes so much sense. 

 

Angie   

And then the third one is just don't give up. It's always a process. There's always something that you're going to want to work on that you're going to want to get your child to do. You'll always have that next milestone in mind, celebrate the milestones that they're doing now and don't give up because you will find that joy and that pleasure in what your child is doing now if you enjoy them at the time, and then just don't give up on them. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

I love that. Thank you Angie. I really appreciate the advice and the wisdom you've shared with us today.  

 

Angie   

You're welcome. 

 

Madeline Cheney   

Links to the toys and books and music we discussed can be found in the show notes on the website, the rarelifepodcast.com under Episode 12. If you are a professional and you have a message that would be impactful on the show, head over to my contact page on the rarelifepodcast.com. If you know someone that fits this description, please send them my way. You can like my Facebook page, The Rare Life podcast for sneak peeks about episodes coming up. Coming up next is my solo episode, Episode 13: five reasons you should go to parent and family conferences. See you then!