Strategies

Raising Children Bilingual or multilingual Doesn’t Cause Confusion In Children

By Pauline, Speech Pathologist, Change for Life

Often parents are told by some health professionals not to speak two languages with their child, or I will have parents say to me: “I don’t want to confuse him/her by speaking two languages”.

These are all myths. There are a lot of myths that dual-language learning causes language delay in children, would confuse the child, or that bilingual children are less intelligent than monolingual children or reducing to one language would improve a child’s chances for success. It is farther from the truth.

There is no evidence indicating that speaking to your child in more than one language causes a delay or that speaking one language will improve your child’s chance for success. Children who speak one language make a lot of errors. It is a normal part of language learning, and, it is not a sign of confusion.

On the other hand, there is evidenced-based research indicating numerous advantages that bilingual children have over monolingual children. Bilingual children can ignore distractions and focus their attention on important information. They are more creative. Bilinguals are better at planning and solving complex problems than monolingual children. The effects of aging on the brain are diminished among bilingual adults. One study found that the onset of dementia was delayed by four years in bilingual children compared to monolingual children. Bilingual children have better access to people and resources. Bilinguals have higher employment rates in some countries. For example, in Canada, people who speak both official languages, i.e., English and French have a 10% higher income rate than those who speak only English.

Reducing to one language can cause a lot of other difficulties emotionally and psychologically because parents can struggle to communicate with their child, and the child might not fit in with other family members and friends. Many parents are learning English themselves, so they are not able to model rich linguistic grammar and therefore, the children only get exposed to simpler linguistic models in English. Research suggests speaking to your child in the language that you speak best as this will provide your child with rich linguistic input. Learning more than one language is doable. Also, children with Autism can be bilingual as there is no scientific evidence that children with developmental disabilities or language impairment cannot learn more than one language. Remember half of the world is bilingual or multilingual.

The Trouble with Gender Pronouns

Michael, Speech Pathologist, Change for Life

Gender pronouns—him, her, she, & he–are types of deictic expressions. All children find deictic expressions challenging, because unlike words such as ‘tree’ or ‘cat,’ they don’t reliably label a single object or class of objects in all situations. Instead, deictic expressions require the addition of specific contexts in order to make sense of them: for example, the ‘there’ phrase “just leave it there” can reasonably be interpreted to mean ‘on the kitchen bench’ if that’s where the speaker was looking at the time, but would likely leave the listener quite confused if it was uttered during a phone conversation.

In order for a child to learn the distinction between deictic expressions such as ‘this,’ and ‘that,’ they have to intuit that ‘this’ and ‘that’ can refer to many different things, and that the only thing that remains the same is the speaker’s perspective. And when it comes to gender pronouns, there are at least two layers of complexity involved: the first, and most obvious, is that we need to use a different pronoun depending on whether we are talking about someone who is female vs. someone who is male. Even when we have figured this out, however, we are still left to choose between ‘her’ or ‘she’ in the event that it’s a female person we’re talking about.

Figuring out the ‘she’ vs ‘her’ puzzle requires the ability to take perspective into account. Is this person doing some action (“She is riding her bike”), or is she receiving an an action (“The cat jumped in her lap”)?

When children mix up gender pronouns, and refer to boys as ‘she,’ or girls as ‘he,’ it provides a startling illustration of how language and social development contribute to, and depend upon, each other. If a child is using pronouns at all, it demonstrates that they have at least begun to grasp that there is a class of words which can ‘fill in,’ for proper nouns. But if they refer to Steven as ‘she,’ then this might just be because their social development has not yet reached the point where they can use the right pronoun for the right context.

It is important to understand, then, that a child who is confusing gender pronouns is not necessarily incapable of grasping these kids of distinctions. The more likely explanation is that either their language or social development—or both—has not yet reached the level where they can mark these distinctions verbally. And given that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder can often find it harder to adopt the perspectives of other people, it is little surprise that gender-pronoun errors, and deictic errors of all kinds, show up more often in this population.

Parents can help children who make these sorts of errors by recasting their sentences. So, if Max says “he is sitting down” when referring to a boy, you would say “he is sitting down”—making sure to put emphasis on the ‘he.’ If your child is seeing a Speech Pathologist, on the other hand, they might well take a combined approach wherein they target both his or her language and social development—which includes perspective taking.

Let’s talk about feelings

By Melanie, Provisional Psychologist, Change for Life

Released in 2015, the award-winning film Inside Out won the hearts of many. Not only was the film engaging, lively and relatable, it also highlighted many lessons about our emotions and the workings of our brain and mind.

Firstly, one of the biggest take-aways from this film was the spotlight it placed on sadness. In the movie, the character Sadness was isolated and even confined to a single space. Sadness was seen by her colleagues and friends not to have a place in helping Riley. This behaviour mirrors the world that we live in today, where many do not embrace being sad. Our society tells us that we need to be happy and think positive thoughts. While somewhat true, there is also an underlying assumption that being sad or thinking negative should be overwritten, that sadness is not value-adding. However, every emotion in our body is there for a reason; it helps us to understand the situation, to troubleshoot a problem, and sometimes to protect ourselves. When we ignore the emotion we’re feeling with something more socially acceptable; we deny ourselves the process of understanding what we are going through. It is okay to feel sad! By embracing sadness, we are opening up ourselves to feel and begin the process of healing. If we deny ourselves the opportunity to be sad and grieve, we are jumping ahead and forcing ourselves to be happy. This does not necessarily solve the issue or the emotional turmoil we are going through. Instead, it leaves an area of our lives unresolved. This festers and might turn into a bigger problem in the future.

Secondly, the movie Inside Out explains to us that our memories can elicit more than one emotion. Maybe recalling a happy memory with a pet that is no longer around might make us feel sad. For a moment, we are confronted with feeling both joy and sadness. It is okay to feel multiple emotions when recalling a memory. As we grow older, we learn to understand more emotions and its complexities. In understanding what emotions each memory elicits, we know how each memory impacts us.

Lastly, our core beliefs play a part in the decisions and actions we make. Riley’s core memories in Inside Out are seen to power her each of her personality islands. When these core memories are lost in the movie, Riley’s personality islands start to fall apart. Similar to core memories, core beliefs are often formed from a childhood experience or an early life experience. When our core beliefs are challenged or threatened, we begin to respond and behave differently to situations. When Riley performed poorly at the Hockey tryouts, her core belief of being a good hockey player and enjoying hockey was threatened, and she got angry and upset. She behaved in a way that she usually would not have. Our core beliefs can be vital to the way we respond to situations.

There are many more lessons that the movie Inside Out presents. It portrays this knowledge in a manner that is easily understood and digested by many across all ages. Watch the movie (again, if you’ve already watched it before) and see if you can find more exciting lessons the producers included in their film.

The Components of Social Communication

Michael Audas, Speech Pathologist, Change for Life

For many of us, our ability to interact with other people is something that we take for granted. This is because it is easy to overlook just how many language, cognitive, and social skills are involved in even the most simple–seeming social acts. For example, here are just a few of the considerations that apply to being able to greet someone appropriately:

1. Familiarity: Am I able to judge how well I know the person I am greeting, and what my relation is to them?
2. Formality: Am I able to select an appropriately formal or informal greeting, depending on my relation to that person? Do I have a ‘bank’ of both informal and formal greetings I can select from?
3. Temporality: Do I understand that greetings often change depending on the time of day?
4. Context and history: If I greeted this same person when I saw them two hours ago, is it appropriate to greet them again? If not, should I just ignore them, or should I acknowledge them in some way? Do I understand the difference between a greeting and an acknowledgement?
5. Nonverbal communication: What, if any, gestures should accompany the greeting I have chosen to make? What should I do with my face as I greet this person? Should I look them in the eyes as I greet them; for how long?
6. Asking and answering questions: What if the person asks me “what have you been up to?” in response to my greeting? Do I know not to take this literally? How lengthy and detailed should my response be?

As you can see, there is a lot to think about when it comes to something that we rarely have to think about! In typical development, we learn all of these things so well from observing and interacting in our social environment that we don’t have to consciously think about all the different steps involved.

For some children, however, the various pieces of the puzzle that make up social communication don’t simply fall into place as if by magic. For these children, skills that seem intuitive need to be explicitly taught. Furthermore, identifying what skills need to be taught, and how, requires identifying which of the proverbial pieces are yet to be put into place.

Speech Pathologists are experts in communication, and are equipped to determine what might be contributing to breakdowns in social communication. Returning to the domain of greetings, difficulties could arise because a child does not know what sort of expression conveys a friendly attitude towards the person they are greeting, or because they lack the vocabulary to be able to appropriately vary the greetings they can produce in response to different contexts. So if your child seems to be finding it difficult to interact with others, consider seeking a referral to a Speech Pathologist from your paediatrician or general practitioner.

Tips for Fussy Eaters in Isolation

Kimberly Nelson, Dietitian, Change for LIfe

Managing this weird and stressful time can be extra challenging when you have children with feeding challenges. Forced time at home and disruptions to usual routines can increase everyone’s stress. Children are quite adept at tuning in to their parents emotions so when you are stressed, it is likely they are feeling this also. Which is a problem for our fussy eaters. When we are stressed, our body releases adrenaline – triggering fight-flight mode. This directly affects your child’s appetite by shutting off appetite signals, moving blood from your digestive system to your limbs so you can fight or run away, and shifts your child into ‘react mode’ versus ‘learning/thinking mode’. Add tantrums into the mix and the adrenalin increases even more.

1. Try to keep your child on their usual eating schedule and a have a flexible daily routine for your family. This helps to not disrupt their hunger/fullness cycles.
2. Focus on pressure free family meals and snacks (see above).
3. Create a weekly menu for meals and snacks with your child (≥ 4 years).
4. Get them in kitchen!
   Children of all ages can help you prepare and cook meals. These activities generally don’t involve pressure to eat so can be a great way to get them more comfortable with different foods.
5. Movement activities.
   This is especially important if your child is missing out on their regular movement opportunities. There are plenty of ideas online for what you can do when stuck at home – inside or out!
6. Build in some deep breathing or yoga into the routine to help balance stress hormones. Free apps for smartphones are available as well as you tube clips.
7. Remember, they are likely to be more overreactive if foods/meals aren’t up to their standards or challenge their sensory sensitivities. Try to be aware of their emotional state around meals and think about how you can help to reduce their stress e.g. movement activities, deep breathing, less food on their plate, more preferred foods with new/learning foods or deconstructing meals.
8. Above all, make food fun!

Adapted from SOS Approach to Feeding – Managing Stressful Times with a Picky Eater or Problem Feeder.

Fun time with baby talk: Age 2 to 4 years

By: Pauline and Michael, Speech Pathology Team, Change for Life

• Speak clearly to your child—model good speech and language.
• Cut out pictures of favourite or familiar things. Put them into categories, like things to ride on and things to eat.
• Help your child understand and ask questions. Play the yes-no game. Ask questions such as, “Are you Paul?” and “Can a dog fly?” Have your child makeup questions and try to fool you.
• Ask questions that include a choice. “Do you want an apple or an orange?” “Do you want to wear your red shirt or your blue shirt?”
• Help your child learn new words. Name body parts, and talk about what you do with them. “This is my nose. I can smell flowers, brownies, and soap.”
• Sing simple songs and say nursery rhymes. It helps your child learn the rhythm of speech.
• Place familiar objects in a box. Have your child take one out and tell you it’s name and how to use it. “This is my ball. I bounce it. I play with it.”

Fun time with baby talk: Birth to 2 Years

By: Pauline and Michael, Speech Pathology Team, Change for Life

Your baby will develop dramatically over this time in term of talking and their language.  Here are some fun ways to encourage talking and playing together.

1. Give lots of eye contact and smiling and taking an interest in their babbling and early language skills.
2. Enjoy singing action songs like nursery rhymes.
3. Read to your child. Talk about the pictures.
4. Choose books that have large colourful pictures. Ask your child, “What’s this?” and try to get him/her to point to or name objects.  Praise them for their efforts.
5. Label familiar objects for them, again, and again, using single words like ball, cup, up, down and milk. This repetition helps children associate the word with the action or object.
6. Point out different things to help them learn colours and shapes, things you see when you are out and about
7. Use gestures, like waving and pointing.
8. Pretend to have a conversation and use lots of gestures with your baby.
9. Talk about different sounds and link them with an object or context (e.g., animals going to the zoo).  It will help your baby connect the sound and the animal. Use words like “The dog says woof-woof.”
10. Add on to what your baby says. When your baby says, “Mama,” say, “Here is Mama. Mama loves you. Where is baby? Here is a baby.”
11. If your child pronounces a word wrong, be encouraging.  Acknowledge what your child has said by repeating the word back to your child correctly.
12. Play games with your child where you take turns
13. Lastly, give your child lots of attention and emotional support as responsiveness to their positive emotions helps build their confidence and learning skills

Family Movie Nights

By Melanie, Provisional Psychologist

Are you creating a list of movies for this weekend?

Don’t forget to include an all-time favourite Pixar film – Inside Out!

Inside Out is a catchy, funny and insightful film. The producer spent years developing the plot by drawing ideas from his daughter who was growing and changing. He also involved a few psychologists (such as Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner – worth checking out their research and books too) to help with character development.

Some lessons we can take away from Inside Out:

• It is essential to embrace sadness to allow healing to begin
• An example of what empathy looks like
• Our core beliefs (personality island) drive the ways that we behave.
  • Our beliefs can also be threatened/challenged.
• The different types of memories (Long Term and Short Term)
• A memory can elicit more than one emotion

Check out this video on youtube: What Causes Anxiety and Depression – Inside Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNsTy-j_sQs

Attached is an activity sheet that our children can participate in after watching the movie. This activity encourages a child to draw a memory in the globe, and shade the globe with multiple colours that symbolise what emotions the memory elicits.

Inside Out Activity Page –Melanie Chan 17.04.20

Sharing Books with your Child

By Kathryn

Speech Pathologist

Books teach children lots of skills like reading, learning new words, problem solving and understanding the world around them. Reading together is a good way to bond with your child. Here are some tips to pick the right book for your child and make reading fun!

Young Children
Look for: