March 5, 2021
Cindy Lopez:
[00:00:00] Welcome to Voices of Compassion, CHC’s podcast series providing courage, connection and compassion, highlighting topics that matter to our community, our parents, families, educators and other professionals. I’m Cindy Lopez and today we’re talking about the young child. The work of young children is to build language and social skills and much of that happens through interaction such as family relationships, play and social interaction with peers. With COVID our children and even our young children are spending more time online. Some kindergartners even started kindergarten this year on Zoom, so it’s important to build in lots of opportunities for our children to practice language and social skills in other ways, since they’re not going to school right now. Listen in as we hear from our guest today, Shirit Megiddo, speech language pathologist here at CHC. Shirit has extensive experience in working collaboratively on multidisciplinary teams in our clinic and schools. She’s also a board certified specialist in child language and specializes in working with children ages two through fourteen. We’re thrilled to have her share experience and expertise with us today. Welcome Shirit! Is there anything else that you’d like to share with our listeners about yourself?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:01:25] Thank you so much Cindy for having me today, I’m very excited to speak with you about the young learner and supporting distance learning, especially as it pertains to language and social communication. I also wanted to share that I might native fluent speaker of Hebrew and English, and I have basic Spanish skills as well. This comes in very handy in my speech therapy work. I also have a two-year-old son, whom I love very much.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:01:51] So Shirit as we think about young children, what are the language and social development milestones that parents might typically see?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:02:00] Cindy that’s a very good question, I’m glad you asked because it’s really important to keep in mind language and social development as we choose expectations for our kids. For the sake of our time today, I’d like to focus on ages kindergarten through second grade. And it’s really important to keep in mind as we’re talking about developmental milestones that there are a wide range of differences and they may differ for some children who might need extra support to reach certain skills. So as we talk about language at this age, children have pretty much mastered all basic language skills. They’re engaging back and forth conversations, they’re responding to and asking questions of all sorts. You know, the ‘WH’ questions like who, what, where, they’re really great storytellers, they know and use most of our grammatical markers, even the irregulars, exceptions to the rules, and English, there’s so many, and they’re able to explain things like how to make something, they’re following three to four step directions. They are pretty vast language users at this point. And in terms of social skills, they’re using basic pragmatic skills, like eye contact, personal space, they’re understanding the perspectives of other kids and other people around them. They’re able to use and identify range of emotions and they might even offer some basic support. They’re engaging in vast pretend play. It’s really neat to see how kids at this age are playing pretend games, using objects that are not even there, and they’re able to negotiate and compromise basic problems that they have with their peers.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:03:36] So Shirit, you said that you were focusing those comments on grades K through two. So generally is that like ages five to seven or something like that?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:03:47] Yes, exactly. And I’m talking about again, typical development.
Cindy Lopez: [00:03:50] Right, so what you just described was a young child, five, six, seven years old, who would be kind of on a typical trajectory in terms of their language and social development. So, and I imagine that in your practice you’re probably seeing the kids that are not quite on that kind of a traditional or typical trajectory, is that right?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:04:15] Yeah, exactly Cindy, I’m working with children who have all sorts of communication challenges, anything from understanding or using language or social skills with others around them.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:04:26] We’re living in this kind of strange time and we have for the past year where, you know, kids are not able to see or be with their peers very much. So, thinking about your practice as a speech language pathologist, I’m wondering what you’re seeing with parents and families right now, like what are the needs that you’re seeing?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:04:45] Yes exactly Cindy you’ve said it well, it’s a very unusual kind of year we’re having and, due to the circumstances in working with children and families all via telehealth. And parents and families are sharing with me that the challenges of keeping their children engaged while being limited to computers or social distancing is quite tremendous. Many children are requiring additional and social communication supports. Those that I see, are not able to access social skill groups that are recommended to them, or even speech and language group therapies or other therapeutic supports. Also, they’re not able to access as many extracurricular activities that they would normally access and enjoy. And it’s quite challenging when they’re attending school either partially or fully distanced, and it’s challenging for these young learners to learn and engage when they’re not able to do it hands-on or in a multimodality learning that they benefit from so much. You know, distance learning also takes, as we all know, adults too, an additional level of planning and organization and time management, what we call executive function skills that too is so, so challenging for children of all ages and also, especially with special needs. I would like to add just one more thing, it’s just, I think about this so often that all parents, all of us, I’m also a parent, we want to practice what is safest for our children and our families, but also do what is most optimal to engage them in learning. So, and every family has their own personal viewpoint of what that might look like. So this is such a challenging time to think about all those things.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:06:26] Thank you for tuning in! Just a note, before we continue on with today’s episode, we hope you’re following us on social media, so you don’t need to wait a whole week between episodes to get engaging, inspiring and educational content from CHC. Our social handles are linked on our podcast webpage at podcasts.chconline.org.
[00:06:49] So if kids are not able to interact and socialize like they might have, if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic, what kinds of things are you seeing? Because they’re not able to socialize or be with their peers in a live way, face to face way, what kinds of things are you seeing that are proving to be challenges for kids and their families?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:07:15] Some parents are worried about their children’s ability to attend long enough to a class that’s on Zoom in a remote learning fashion. They’re concerned, are their children able to sit and attend and participate in this way. Is this a challenge because their child’s attention skill is not appropriate or is it because this is not expected for children at this age, to be able to do that. We wouldn’t necessarily before the pandemic we wouldn’t have thought to have a child on the computer for five to seven hours a day. And then also being able to engage in a conversation on a computer or six to ten feet apart at a park, that’s also not very natural. So some parents are wondering if the fact that their child is running away when grandma comes on the computer or not looking up and not using appropriate eye contact, is it because of the circumstances or is their child having some challenges in these areas.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:08:09] Yeah, of course we have never asked our young child to do the kinds of things you know, we’re asking of them today. And speaking of that, so you are seeing some kiddos with teletherapy. So, can you just talk a little bit about that, like how is that going, does that work?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:08:26] Sure, I’m happy to talk about that. It’s actually been really enjoyable to, to also have to adapt. I myself have had to do a lot of adapting in working with children of all ages. I’m working at this point with children ages four to fifteen, so I have extensive practice working with children younger than that. And every child is different, but essentially, I, as normally in my therapy, I use the child’s interests and the family’s personal expectations and activities and rituals and try to adapt those to use, to target the skills we’re working on in my therapy. So on the computer, what that looks like is, if it’s a young child, like the child we’re working, or we were talking about, the five to seven year old using whatever games and toys that they have in their room. And then I bring in, if I happen to, you know, bring in a puppet of some kind or an object of some kind, and we talk about how we can kind of merge our toys together on the screen. I, I’m using a lot of books on YouTube, a lot of wonderful read aloud books, that feels like a natural, you know, reading together time. There are a lot of valuable tools, a lot of things we can do virtually that we wouldn’t be able to do in person like using the backgrounds and taking the child to a new location by using a background, whether it’s a community location, like a restaurant or a park, or actually taking them to a pretend like aquarium or arcade and using that as the focus of our language and social communication therapy.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:09:58] Yeah that’s great. I really hadn’t heard it described before so it was kind of fun listening to thinking about all the things that you can do because it’s virtual versus the things you can’t do. But also just for our listeners to let you know that you can find out more about teletherapy at CHC, including speech language pathologists services at chconline.org. You might also want to find out about a free parent consultation. So you can sign up for a free parent consultation if you’re interested, if you’re not sure about next steps with your child. So, chconline.org. So Shirit, what are some tools and strategies you can share with our listeners to help them support their young children right now?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:10:46] Well, there are definitely so many tools and strategies to talk about. I’d love to share a few here. Some of them I’ve touched upon just a minute ago, so this is a great segway, daily routines, the time that you’re already spending at home cooking and cleaning and gardening and laundry, all are such wonderful opportunities to practice and encourage in your children the communication and social skills. So these are all activities that incorporate vocabulary, following multi-step directions, sequencing skills. You’re already doing them, why not enjoy those with your children and teach them these life skills as well. In addition to that, something maybe families haven’t thought about is if you have a smartphone, which many of us have, you can take photos of these activities, especially step-by-step, if you’re making cookies or gardening, and then use that to talk about what you did in the moment and right after, and the week later. So you’re practicing story narration and grammar and conversation skills, and you can share those with your family and friends. And then one other strategy that I’m using a lot in my therapy and it’s so, so enriching for children, especially our young children we’re talking about today is reading, reading books and online, you can find the classics and new books, both being read by a live person or in an animated version and you can either read those together, or if you need some respite, which we all as parents do, let your child watch this instead of a cartoon. And it’s such a wonderful way to listen and practice story narration again and responding and asking questions and making inferences. And you can even look up some wordless picture books and have your child make his or her own story.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:12:34] Those are great strategies, and I love how you’re encouraging parents to use tools that they have with them. What about supporting your child with peer-to-peer interactions on the social side?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:12:46] Great question. That’s of course the one that’s on all of our minds, because this seems to be the most challenging thing. How do we have our children play with other children in this time period. What children at age five to seven are doing a lot of is pretend play, and they’re pretending to go to and, and be in locations in their community because they’re practicing what it’s like to do the real thing, going to the store, playing doctor, playing restaurant, that can all still be done either in your homes with siblings or yourselves or on the screen. We want to show our children how you can use everyday objects around us to be those pretend things like books on the shelf can be menus, blocks in their block box can be the groceries in the store and we help our children set this up and play and practice , and especially bridge it to the books their reading so that you can talk about how you’re doing this, like the, the characters in the book did it and vice versa. And then you can say, oh, now, you know, look your, your friend um Johnny on the screen, he’s also doing this on the screen. Now we can pretend that we’re doing it together with him.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:13:56] So as we think about all of this that you’ve talked with us about today, the language development, the social development, what you’re seeing right now with family and what the needs are in this time when we’re using screens so much more. As we think about the tools and strategies, like you’ve given us a lot of great food for thought and ideas that parents can take back and actually use. Shirit I’m wondering if there is one thing that you hope our listeners would take away from the episode today, what would that be?
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:14:27] Yes, definitely there’s so much to think about and parents at this point are probably feeling at some point overwhelmed with everything that they’re facing this past year. So the most important thing I want to, I want you all to think about is the time you’re already spending, engaging with your kids in those everyday routines that are already happening in your day, that is so, so valuable, and that is already giving them the language and the social skills that they’re practicing. So you’re already providing them what they need. The basic care, the life skills, it’s all part of what you’re already doing. And there’s no need to spend a lot of extra time on activities and buying toys that are fancier, costly. Everything you have around you, all those simple items you have right there in your home, like cardboard boxes and toilet paper rolls can be made into games. And what you’re already doing with their children, eating meals and folding laundry can already be so enriching for them for social practice. It’s just a matter of practicing little everyday to make the games and activities fit on the computer and the social distance way with other kids, it’s just a matter of little by little using the blocks and the cards and the cars that they’re already playing with at home to play on the computer with other kids or ten feet apart in a park, whatever works for your family. We’re all in this together, right.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:15:48] Yeah, well, thanks so much. When you were talking it made me think about my nephew’s daughter who is one and a half. And she’s loving like Mickey Mouse Club and stuff, but I was thinking, oh, I should get her to listen to some of her favorite books like recording to the books on YouTube. And then I was also thinking, her grandparents who live in Tennessee, like they could actually read a book to her and send the video. Anyway, lots of good ideas. So thank you so much Shirit for investing your time with us today and sharing your thoughts and expertise with our listeners. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us, and we hope that you will join us again next week for our next Voices of Compassion podcast episode. Until then please check us out at chconline.org. You can find lots of great resources there, including how to access speech language pathologists services, if you need them for your child. So thanks so much for joining us today and thank you, Shirit.
Shirit Megiddo:
[00:16:53] Thank you very much, Cindy, for having me, it’s been a pleasure.
Cindy Lopez:
[00:16:56] Find us online at podcasts.chconline.org. Also, please follow us on our socials. Find us on Facebook at chc.paloalto and Twitter and Instagram at CHC_paloalto. You can also visit our YouTube channel at chconlinepaloalto. And we are on LinkedIn. Subscribe to Voices of Compassion on Apple podcasts, Spotify and other podcast apps, and sign up for a virtual village email list so you never miss an update or an episode. I always love to hear from you so send me an email or a voice memo at podcasts@chconline.org or leave us a rating and review. We look forward to you tuning in each week. After all we are in this together. See you next week.
