Early Language Development Skills and Strategies with Jeaneen Tang, Author of "Play Dumb and Sabotage".

 Kristin Revere and Jeaneen Tang discuss how parent and caregiver education and training on early language development skills and strategies is so important. Jeaneen also shares tips from her new book, Play Dumb and Sabotage.  

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Transcript

Kristin Revere and Jeaneen Tang discuss how parent and caregiver education and training on early language development skills and strategies is so important.  Jeaneen also shares tips from her new book, Play Dumb and Sabotage.  

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with Jeaneen Tang today.  Jeaneen is a speech language pathologist and mother of a special needs child.  Along with her over 20 years of experience with working with children and adults with neurodiversity, she also has an 11-year-old son who is neurodivergent.  He suffered a traumatic brain injury and stroke at 13 months old.  Jeaneen’s personal and professional relationship with this amazing population has forever changed her, and she hopes to change their world, as well.  

Jeaneen recently published her first book called Play Dumb and Sabotage.  It addresses early language development and is meant to be helpful for parents, caregivers such as doulas, and educators to work through any issues with young children and hopefully decrease the number of children needing speech therapy later on.  

Jeaneen believes we can achieve success and raise confident communicators.  Welcome, Jeaneen! 

Thank you for having me on, Kristin! 

I am ready to learn from you.  We haven’t had a speech pathologist on Ask the Doulas in a while, and with your personal and professional training, I’m curious to learn more about how as postpartum doulas, we can give the proper referrals to our clients who are looking for help earlier rather than waiting for any delays that may happen later on. 

Absolutely.  I think that working with people like you, the doulas, is so important because you guys are so trained in the whole birthing process and postpartum process and you guys have a great relationship and rapport with your clients.  It’s a natural communication for you to help with any red flags they might see, any difficulties that they might be concerned about or not even aware about.  Sometimes parents get to this point where there’s the idea that, oh, their child is fine, even though they might have a gut feeling that there might be some kind of delay, and they come into a state of almost denial and they continue to go on as everyday until the child becomes almost two years old and they’re not talking.  So it’s great to nip it in the bud and get that help as soon as possible. 

Exactly.  And at Gold Coast, we do work with families with NICU babies and a lot of twin and triplet babies.  They are often asking us for referrals for speech pathologists and other services in our community, so your book is a great resource, as well as your website, for our clients. 

Thank you!  Yes, I think like birth training, parent training in language is as important because they take so much time in learning how to give birth and what happens after birth, how to diaper their baby, how to feed their baby and everything, but they don’t necessarily learn how to interact with their child and how to promote that language and introduce how to do vocal play and how to have this back and forth conversation, whether it be nonverbal or with babbling or moving forward to words. 

So Jeaneen, is this something that you recommend parents prepare for during pregnancy, like they would with taking a childbirth class or breastfeeding class, or is this something that is more of an after delivery type of planning and prep? 

I think it’s great if they could start planning and taking a look at the book and the strategies before they have their baby, because you know after you have your child, you’re just so tired and you’re just going that having to pick up a book when you’re exhausted is almost too much. 

Right. 

Does that make sense? 

It absolutely does.  And that’s what I tell my clients.  They’re sleep deprived, even if they work with an overnight postpartum doula or a newborn care specialist.  They’re tired, and so to do as much preparation and planning during pregnancy and even sometimes preconception can be so beneficial.  I love the resources that you offer.  I’d love to hear more about how you can work with our listeners, whether it’s connecting with you directly or picking up your book. 

Absolutely.  You know, I have a handful of friends who are having babies now, and I’ve been giving my book as a baby shower gift. 

Oh, beautiful! 

It’s available in paperback, and I have a lot of parents who are like, you know, I have your book but I haven’t read it yet because I’m so busy.  So it is available on Audible, as well, and it will be available on Spotify and wherever you can get audiobooks very soon.  So it’s very easy to get.  It’s a very easy read.  It’s very conversational, and it’s also very easy to listen to.  I did not record it myself, but my narrator was great in how she was able to convey my book and she was very communicative on how to relay my message as best as she could.  So I think it’s a great resource. 

And I agree with you.  For busy parents, it’s amazing to have an audio format as well as, of course, a physical copy to be able to go back to certain chapters that apply.  Even if they listen to the audiobook during pregnancy, they may want to go back to certain sections as they are in that early parenting phase that may be a little bit blurry. 

Absolutely.  You go through that pregnancy brain and straight into a mommy fog, and that kind of just doesn’t go away.  My son is almost 11, and I’m like, oh, my gosh.  When am I going to catch up on all that sleep?  It’s like a never ending thing.  But they can reach out to me on my website.  I have a website called Play Dumb and Sabotage.  They can reach out there and be added to my email list.  I’m starting a newsletter and will hopefully do some online training, as well.  They can also just reach out and just ask any questions that they might have. 

Beautiful.  So you mentioned not only parent education but caregivers.  So do you help prepare nannies or au pairs and other caregivers, even grandparents, who are actively involved in childcare?  As we both know, we’re in a childcare crisis.  There is a lack of options and certainly very few affordable options.  Our listeners are getting creative with finding care, whether it’s working from home and trying to manage things themselves.  But how do you focus on educating others who are involved in caring for newborns and children? 

I think it’s important for everybody who is involved in that child’s life to be educated and taught how to use language strategies, whether it be the grandparents, nannies, preschool teachers, daycare staff, other teachers.  Everybody who’s going to be active in that child’s life is really important.  So I provide direct trainings to preschools right now.  They have reached out to me.  I’m reaching out to my local YMCAs and reaching out to parents and sometimes there’s nannies that come along.  When I work with my clients in early intervention, some of those clients have nannies at home, so I do direct trainings with the nannies, as well, alongside the parents.  So I think it’s all important for everybody in that child’s life to be on the same page because if you have the parent doing the strategies but the grandparents are still tending to every need that child might have before the child’s able to even know that they need something, then there is a disconnect in the flow of the therapy and the flow of how that child is going to be able to practice that language. 

Okay.  Excellent.  So outside of going to your website and getting information that way, as well as your social media – I know you’re on Instagram – but also with the book content, how can people find a credible speech language pathologist in their local area?  What tips do you have for our listeners? 

So to find a speech therapist in your local area, I would definitely reach out to the department that would be handling early intervention.  In Los Angeles, California, it is the Regional Center.  So you get a referral to the Regional Center, and they would help connect you with some licensed and credible speech language pathologists that they vendor with, so they are able to vet those speech therapists.  There’s also – online, there’s myself.  I can also refer to some local speech therapists.  I’ve also connected with a speech therapist in Minnesota on a podcast, and she does amazing work there.  There are a lot of speech therapists on Instagram, as well, who have great tips to help with different strategies and play.  A lot of early intervention is structured play, so it is learning strategies that you can implement into your child’s daily life and then practice that and become your child’s play partner. 

Beautiful.  I love that.  So that would be a little bit of mat time, tummy time.  You could incorporate some of the techniques that they learn from your book and website.  And you had mentioned babble play, as well.  Can you elaborate on that, Jeaneen? 

Absolutely.  So before a child can say words, they’re going to have to learn how to produce sounds.  A lot of the early sounds might be ma-ma-ma, da-da-da, ba-ba-ba.  Things that are repetitious.  That’s why we think, oh, the child said mama, because that’s one of the first sounds they might make, or dada.  Right?  It’s like, oh, they said their first word.  But they’re really just playing with their sounds.  So until they’re able to consistently call you mama or their father dada consistently, that’s not really a true word.  They’re really just vocally playing.  The way that we can help as their communicative partners is to respond to their vocal play or initiate vocal play with them so they can learn that, oh, they are making sounds.  They can react to someone who is communicating with them, and the communicative partner can react to what they are saying themselves.  And then you can play and change and vary those sounds so they can start to mimic intonation.  They can learn that, oh, if they move their tongue in a different way or their jaw in a different way, different sounds will come out.  So there is that communication that happens, even if there aren’t actual words going on.  There’s facial expressions.  There’s eye contact.  There’s gestures.  There is play in the voice.  And all of that is super important for them to know that there is interaction happening and that they can affect how somebody else responds to them. 

Excellent.  I love that.  So any signs that our listeners should be looking out for, for delays? 

Yes, if the child is not responding to sounds.  Say you have a rattle or some kind of toy that makes a noise and the child is not turning to that toy or item, you might want to check their hearing because there can be a hearing delay or a hearing loss.  Or there could be some other abilities; maybe autism or something, that is affecting their ability to attend to their environment.  If they are not babbling before one year – actually, you know, it would be six months, even before that – if they’re not babbling before that, it’s a sign that they have some delay in language or speech.  If they’re not saying their first word by around one year, then that’s a red flag that oh, they are not on track for their speech.  You want them saying two rows in a row, connecting two words, by two years.  And then at three years, connecting at least three to five words or more at that point.  So if a child is not saying their first word by 13 months, 14 months, 15 months – you definitely want to flag that.  Maybe get a referral from your pediatrician or reach out to your local agency. 

Excellent.  So as a doula, I’ve noticed more and more tongue ties and lip ties.  How would that affect speech if it gets missed until a child is older? 

That can definitely affect how the child is able to move their tongue or their lips.  If caught early on, they do have a surgical procedure to release that, but unless it’s very severe, the child should be able to accommodate their tongue movements.  I have a short frenulum, the ligament at the bottom of the tongue.  It’s short, but it’s not severely short.  I’ve learned after going through my speech therapy program that, oh, I accommodate certain sounds by just producing it by moving my tongue in a different way.  So it should not affect babbling so much, but it might affect where the placement of the tongue is for certain sounds. 

That makes sense.  Is there anything else you’d like to highlight from your book, or tips that you share on social media, Jeaneen? 

Yes, the title of my book is Play Dumb and Sabotage, and the subtitle is Mindfully Under-Anticipating the Child’s Needs and Create Opportunity to Practice Language.  The “play dumb” is really about knowing what the child needs, but willing yourself to not over-anticipate everything they need, because that really is a detriment for them to practice their language.  As parents, as caregivers, we think being a good caregiver and a good parent is anticipating everything the child needs and providing that before the child even knows that they need something.  Before they’re even hungry, we start feeding them.  Before their soiled, or if they’re just soiled a little bit in their diaper, we’re going to change.  We’re going to get their clothes changed.  We’re going to give them a blanket before they’re even cold.  We want to make sure that they’re comfortable, make sure that they’re not crying.  And by doing that, we are taking away opportunities where we can practice interactions with that child.  So for snack time, children are given a whole bowl of snack rather than just a couple little pieces.  If we just give a couple pieces, they then have to ask for more or indicate that they want something more.  If there’s a toy that they love, a great strategy is to have it in sight but just out of reach, so they can indicate that they want that thing, that they need something.  And then also when we are instructing them – instead of just changing their clothes, we offer them choices.  “Do you want to wear the blue shirt or the green shirt?”  “Do you want to wear the red pants or the yellow pants?”  And then also providing the vocabulary, as well as showing the items, so they know that this is the red shirt.  This is the blue shirt, and so on and so forth, because we don’t know vocabulary unless we’re introduced to it and experience it.  Does that make sense? 

It does, absolutely.  So helpful.  Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, and I’m glad that you were able to impact even more families with your book being there as far as audio and print format.  I would love to have you share your website again for our listeners and your social media links and different ways that they can connect with you. 

They can go to my website, Play Dumb and Sabotage.  I’m on Instagram @playdumbandsabotage, as well as my personal Instagram with is @jt808. 

Thank you so much, and again, I appreciate the work you’re doing! 

IMPORTANT LINKS

Play Dumb & Sabotage

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported