By Heather L. E. McKay
Most people will tell you that children learn to speak (use mouth words) by listening to the adults in their life, to their peers and other family members – from teachers etc. That by listening to and learning from those around them – they will learn to speak. They also believe that modelling speech for children, reading to them and talking properly around children is what teaches them to talk.
When a child is delayed in speech, most doctors and ‘experts’ will tell you to see a speech pathologist to help. And I second this recommendation. You cannot find out what is delaying your child, unless you have an expert in speech delays, assess the child and come up with a plan to support them.
But I can attest that speech therapy had no impact on my children’s (or my) development of speech. It will be different for other children, as other children may have apraxia, dyspraxia, a cleft or a tongue tie, or any other number of things – and a speech therapist will be paramount!!!!! But my children (and I) didn’t have those issues – but we were still delayed in speech. We still see a speechie for the kids – but it’s not for their GLP (which is the reason why they, and I, were delayed) – it’s for other issues like APD, confidence, pronunciation, and other skills building to help them be more ‘able’ in this society.
My children now have an abundance of language, but they did NOT learn the majority of mouth words from me, or from other adults in their peripheral (teachers, family etc), or from their speech therapist, or from their peers!
How do I know?
Because they have American accents – hinted with Australian, and they always have had this. From the moment they started using mouth words, they spoke with an American accent.
Noone in their sphere is American. I have American friends, but my children have never met them, heard them or spoken to them. And yet they have an accent not of their origin. This can only be explained by the fact that their speech was and is predominantly influenced by screens… and the things that they watch on those screens are mostly from American sources.
They mostly learnt to speak from watching YouTube and Disney movies – where gestalts are plentiful to choose from, easy and quick to learn, and feel good in the brain and mouth. A gestalt isn’t just ‘A’ word, or ‘set’ of words – it has to have meaning to the individual, importance, feel good when repeated over and over, and easily recalled, but also – it helps to remember a gestalt if there is a visual or specific memory attached to it. Very famous lines from movies are great to understand what a gestalt can be for some people – people who are GLPs; eg: “I’ll be back”, “I see dead people”, “Frankly mam I don’t give a damn”, “We’re gunna need a bigger boat”, “I’m batman”, “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”, “Yippee Ki-yay” or from Disney movies, things like “Your Welcome!”, “Do you want to build a snowman”, etc… These very iconic phrases have a visual attached to them that help cement learning, and everyone who has seen the movie knows the line and the meaning behind the line. I lived on these types of gestalts until I learnt to speak whole language – I devoured them.
When I was a kid, I had a slight English accent with hints of Australian – but as I grew, my Australian accent took over (which I regret) – no offense to my Australian place of birth – but it makes me nasal and a bit high pitched and I hate it. I was also GLP like my kids and severely speech delayed. How did I learn to use mouth words? With the BBC, shows like: Benny Hill, Kenny Everitt, The Good Life, The Young Ones, To The Manor Born, Yes Minister (and Yes, Prime Minister), Dangermouse, Wind in the Willows, Bananaman, Dr Who, The Storyteller, BlackAdder’ and ’Allo ’Allo etc. These were pretty much the only things I watched other than MTV on a Saturday morning.
Screens were what taught me enough gestalts to be able to learn mouth words. But the only gestalts I leant were heavily English accented. So, I picked up a weird way of speaking. I was picked on for it, so I eventually unlearnt it and ended up with an Australian accent – but my point is…. For a speech delayed GLP – we don’t learn enough gestalts from JUST listening to the people in our lives – we often NEED screens if we are to develop mouth words.
Gestalts are things that are iconic and memorable to the individual – or fun – like songs and music. You can’t pick up great or even good gestalts from listening to everyday conversations. Why – because people don’t talk in repetitions, they don’t talk with fantastic gusto or bravado – or with rich inflections or nuance. Stage actors sometimes talk like that – but everyday conversation – no – not usually. So it’s harder to depict many gestalts from random speech…. Random everyday language can actually delay our speech development further – because it’s not what we need when we need it, but it also doesn’t speak to the way our brains work and learn.
Please don’t deny screens to kids – just because you have an arbitrary set against them, or believe them to be evil etc. They are powerful tools that some people with neurological difference NEED in order to learn the same things that other neurotypes learn by just listening to their parents talk.
Don’t deny a child a tool that could be vital for their development – and don’t assume what they do and don’t need…. You couldn’t possibly know what is going on inside that child’s head / know how they learn / or how they develop. Assuming things and denying tools can be catastrophic to some of us. Afterall, I believe I could’ve learnt mouth words much earlier in life (eg: before age 7) – and would NOT have been held back from starting school. My whole life would’ve been different… and very possibly – better, if I’d had more access and better access to meaningful gestalts earlier in life and more often.