Ep 98: Rethinking Language Development with Cathy Schilling

Please excuse any errors in this auto-generated transcript

Speaker Names

Dr Olivia KesselHost

00:06

Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. Before we start with the episode, I'd like to invite you to become a member of our Send Parenting what's Up? Community. It's a private space designed just for us. Parenting neurodiverse children can come with its own set of challenges, but it's also full of incredible moments of joy and growth. So I wanted to create a space where we can come together as neurodiverse parents to connect, share experiences and offer support to one another with no judgment and a lived in understanding. If you're a neuro navigator like me and have felt alone on this journey, then this is the community for you. Join us as we navigate this unique journey together. Join us as we navigate this unique journey together.

01:26

In this episode, we are diving into the fascinating world of language with a very special guest, kathy Chilling, founder of the Speech Den and an expert in gestalt language processing in children, which can often be linked or associated with autism. If you've ever wondered why your child might be delayed in their speech, or that they echo whole phrases or repeat them in unexpected ways, or if you're simply looking to understand how neurodiverse children, uniquely, can develop their language skills, this is an episode for you. Kathy will help us unravel how gestalt language processing differs from more traditional linear language development and why it's important to embrace and support these pathways. So let's explore together how we can empower our children to communicate, honoring their unique voices and their beautiful ways that they express themselves. Grab a cup of tea, settle in and join us for this enlightening conversation.

02:27

So welcome, kathy. It is a pleasure to have you back on the Send Parenting podcast. I think it's taken us over a year to get this aligned with the stars that we can speak about this topic which I have been dying to explore with you, which is gestalt language processing, which you know a lot about, I know very little about, my listeners know very little about, so I am super excited to have you on the show today to pick your brain about this fascinating topic. But before we begin, I know you've been on the show before, but a lot of listeners might not have heard that show, so I would love if you could just introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you founded the Speech Den.

Cathy ShillingGuest

03:06

So I'm Cathy Schilling. I'm a speech and language therapist. I've been working as a speech and language therapist for over 30 years and I started working. I've worked for the NHS, I've worked for the British forces in Germany, worked for the NHS, I've worked for the British forces in Germany and then set myself up an independent practice around 20 years ago, just when I had very small children and I needed to be a little bit more flexible with my working practice. And, as they say, from little acorns bigger things grow, and so I guess things grew and grew and then, 10 years ago, the speech then was started and then things have just gone, I guess, from strength to strength. We're a tiny little team based in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, working with around a wide range of schools and families who live in Gloucestershire, oxfordshire, worcestershire and Warwickshire Excellent.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

04:12

Well, it's lovely to have you on the show today to discuss GASALT language processing and many of our listeners, including myself, might be aware of the different kind of communication differences within neurodiversities, but this might be a new term to them, as it was to me when we initially spoke about it, so can you give kind of like an overview for us ignorant folk regarding it?

Cathy ShillingGuest

04:35

So the understanding about gestalt, language processing and the research goes back a really, really long way. So we're going back to sort of 70s, 80s with Anne Peters, dr Barry Prezant, who identified that some children were communicating using echolalia and that this echolalia was communicative.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

05:01

Can you explain that term? Echolalia for people.

Cathy ShillingGuest

05:04

Of course. So echolalia can be either immediate, when a child repeats back exactly what you've said immediately, or it can be delayed, where children are repeating something back in a whole phrase or a whole chunk that they've heard before and it might be used in another situation after it's first been said from a parent, from a book, from a nursery rhyme, from a song, from a media clip, from a teacher, from a friend, from anywhere, um, and so they identified that echolalia. So this using chunks of information, chunks of language, was communicative, that it wasn't something that was just being used just to copy, that it had purpose.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

06:02

So it wasn't like a parrot who, can you know, can say hello, hello. It actually was a form of communication.

Cathy ShillingGuest

06:09

Absolutely. And following on from that, marge Blanc was identifying many children within her own practice who were coming in with this kind of pattern of communication and over a 15-year period Marge studied 85 different children and young people and wrote a book about their communication, about their different communication style, this gestalt language processing, and through that she identified that some of these, that most of these children and young people, were going through their own language acquisition, and so the natural language acquisition framework, um, was born and Marge has written an incredible book about it. And in fact, um, we're very lucky to at the speech den to uh soon be suppliers of this book, um to make it a little bit more affordable for people in the UK. And since Marge wrote the book sort of 15 years ago now it was published in 2012, there's been other sort of speech and language therapists have really started to sort of find Marge, I guess through social media and, in particular, from um speech and language therapists like Alexandria Zakos, who runs um, who's the owner of Meaningful Speech, and she runs online courses for professionals and parents and has really brought it to the to the forefront.

08:03

And I guess, guess my own kind of knowledge about gestalt language processing came from a podcast. Because I'm so interested in anything that supports children who are neurodivergent and working in a neurodiversity affirming way, I've actively kind of looked out for information about that, and one of the podcasts was Alex talking about GLPs with Learn, play Thrive with Meg, and I sat there in the car and I had this light bulb moment and I was just thinking, oh, my goodness, this just makes so much sense. And from there again things grew and last summer Alex came over to the UK and did two two-day conferences in Cheltenham and London in person, and then this year in September October, we did a five-day conference online, which was truly international, with a host of professionals all sharing information around gestalt, language processing and sort of how we could support parents, children, professionals in their work Super interesting and so, unlike the way non-Gustalt language processors work, so we usually acquire language in a kind of linear fashion.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

09:32

Can you, can you kind of like explain the difference between how we traditionally think of acquiring language and then how you acquire it, how these children acquire it, with Gustalt language processing, because that's really super interesting.

Cathy ShillingGuest

09:45

Yeah. So when I was at university, when I was studying to be a speech and language therapist, I learned the majority of my time was spent learning about analytical language processes, and this will be many of the children that I've worked with in the past, and these are the kind of children that we would call our word babies. So they start learning a few words. It might be car, dog, mama, dada, milk, bye, bye, go, this kind of style of processing and they start to join two words together. Then they start putting two or three words together, they start talking in short sentences, where perhaps their grammar is a bit out of sync, and then move on to more adult forms of sentence formation, using complex sentences to communicate. Our gestalt language processors do not follow this pattern, so they are what we might call our intonation babies. So they're picking up the intonation, they're picking up the rhythm, the sing-song-ness or songs in terms of learning language, so, rather than single words, we quite often hear whole chunks, great, big, long, sort of tooth, you know, sort of lots of words together sometimes, sometimes whole books, whole songs, and this is how they're communicating and in terms of their stages, they start off with a whole chunk, which has holds meaning for them. Quite frequently it might be picked up from the emotion of a situation as well. So, for example, if they were going up towards the oven in the kitchen and the mom said and their mom said, don't touch that, it's hot, and said it in a sort of a tone of of sort of panic, they might then use this particular chunk in another situation that doesn't relate to the oven at all. What that might? Because they've picked up the emotion and they've picked up a whole phrase from their mum and it might be used in another situation of say something that they're worried about. So they might be at preschool or at school and they might suddenly say don't touch that, it's hot. And actually that might mean I'm, you know, I'm quite worried, I'm quite anxious about something. So they start off in this what we call a stage one with a whole chunk and they've learnt it as a whole, and that's what gestalt means is a whole. And then the next stage is where they might be kind of like picking and mixing bits of stage one gestalts. So it might be that they then say something like don't touch my book. Okay, and they've learned my book previously as a chunk and they've learned don't touch as a chunk with the other bit and they're mixing and matching. Or it might be that they hear it's time to go home and then they mix and match and it's time for snack. They're mixing and matching those two. And that would be a stage two.

13:17

Then stage three is the kind of like exciting part where our gestured out language processors start to really understand that language has meaning and that some of these parts are much more referential. And it's at this stage that maybe their intonation changes as well. And I'm thinking about one particular child that I was working with in a school and he'd been seeing me at the speech den and using stage what. I'd watched him move from stage one into stage two of the natural language acquisition framework, and when I was at school I really I suddenly observed him moving into stage three. What does this look like? Well, this looks like single words and two word combinations, and we might think, oh, my goodness, they're regressing, because they were talking loads before and now they're suddenly just using single words and maybe two word combinations, often two nouns together. And what this actually signifies is the child becoming aware of language as individual units, as single pieces, not as wholes. So that's why it's really exciting, because it means that we're starting to move into a more self-generated use of language.

14:43

And so this little boy I'd got his preferred interest. I got his dinosaurs out and he just looked at me and he went dinosaur. And then he said chair dinosaur and the dinosaur was sitting on the chair and then he said chair green. In fact he didn't say it like that, he said chair green and then he pointed and he said triceratops and so on and so forth and it just went like this. Unfortunately I didn't have my um uh phone videoing it, because it was just the most golden moment where he'd gone through the stages and and he went. And then after that, stage three went pretty quickly and then he started moving into stage four. And stage four to stage six is where children then start using grammar and it's much more self-generated. So stage four is kind of you'll hear lots of sort of grammatical errors and then as they move into stage five and six, so their grammar becomes more sophisticated. Sorry, that's a very long explanation.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

15:55

No, it's very interesting though, and it helps, like you know, if you're a parent listening to this and you're thinking to yourself okay, how is language going to progress if my child is a gestalt language processor? That really makes it clear. And also, you know where you said where actually it was a huge breakthrough. Actually it could be perceived as a regression. So to acknowledge and know that but I guess, taking a step back, for people that are listening, what are some of the first indications that your child might be a gestalt language processor? Because then I imagine how you support them is also different. So that's kind of the second part of the question, but the first part is kind of how do know, how do parents pick up on this or do educators pick up on it?

Cathy ShillingGuest

16:42

So I think that both parents and educators can pick up on this. What are the kind of key signals? Well, things like we just like I was talking about echolalia where children are repeating something that they've heard previously, and what we know sometimes about our children is that these may come from media clips, so it might be something they're watching on YouTube. It might be something. I had a little one come to see me this morning and her dad had said, oh no, it's raining. And she now uses it's raining to mean she doesn't want to do something, so she's learnt this chunk. And that's a real prime example of maybe some of the language that those chunks or those scripts or that sentence that a child is using doesn't necessarily match the situation in our eyes yeah so we have to kind of be detectives.

17:47

But I've come on to that bit in a minute. So what are the other signs? Um, are they? Is their speech? Um, are we listening to long strings of unintelligible speech? And when I say I mean unintelligible, not unintelligent, so that means that we don't understand what they're saying.

18:05

But we can hear this kind of rhythm and intonation that sounds like speech. I guess many years ago I might have referred to this as jargon, but it's not. It's meaningful. What I don't have the capacity to do sometimes is to work out what the child is saying. So often parents are just brilliant at working out what the child is trying to say, because quite frequently what we've got with our GLPs is they have an ability to say longer chunks but haven't caught up motorically. So in terms of speech, sounds and and and patterns they haven't caught up that way. So it might not sound, so it might be quite difficult to interpret, but if we can maybe try and work out where that intonation has come from, I've had another little girl who came to see me a couple of weeks ago who, um, just sang throughout the session.

19:01

So her form of communication, her style, was that she was using songs and she would sing old mcdonald had a farm, um, and she sang, um. What else did she sing? Uh, five little monkeys jumping on the bed. And then there was another lovely song that I'd never heard of before, which was about a camel called Alice who had so many humps, and she was using her fingers to indicate how many humps Alice had. And that is how she communicates literally all day long. So we've talked, I've talked quite a lot about these longer chunks.

19:37

Sometimes they might be single words. Some children may also be non-speaking, so may, for example, replay a particular part of a media clip over and, over and over again. That might be their form of scripting, or echolalia might be through, um, using a media clip. I've had another little one whose communication might be repeating the whole of a book or a story that that they know. But I guess the key things are things like intonation. Does it really match what, um, what they've already heard? Can you almost hear yourself in what your child is saying because of the intonation pattern? And invariably, invariably, these scripts or gestalts are often linked to a situation that is of high emotion and that can be something that's really fun high emotion, and that can be something that's really fun. Um, some parents have reported sometimes that perhaps uh, language that they didn't want their child to use has been, um, also been copied and and also used in the right place as well.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

20:52

Um with the right intonation yeah, exactly, exactly, um.

Cathy ShillingGuest

20:58

but I guess that then brings us on quite nicely to you know what kind of supports that we might want to be using. Child was really meaning. The parent, being the detective, said to me I now know whenever she said it's raining, it means something that's difficult, that she doesn't want to do, or she doesn't fancy going outside or whatever it might be. It's raining means I don't want to do that. That's her way of communicating that and the parent has now understood that. So, being a detective trying to work out a where the gestalt or scripts have, or Peppa Pig TV programme and they picked like a little chunk from there, maybe there might be others that we could support with that, not talking too much, this is massive, I think.

22:16

As a speech and language therapist I've always thought we must model language for our children, which modeling language means lots of talking, actually, with our gestalt language processors. They need time to process what's being said to them. So my key thing is silence is golden and the other, I guess another really important part is not asking questions, and it's really. This is particularly important in the early stages and the reason for that is in stages one and two children don't have that understanding that language is in individual units, understanding that language is in individual units. So if we ask them a question, the chances are, if they respond, it's going to be to echo or to copy back what we've already said. Prime example, a little one that I was working with would say can you dry this for me? Only he didn't say that. He said can I try this? Which actually meant can you dry this for me please? But he picked up the question and not that I'd said it, but something that he'd heard previously with his family and was echoing, was using that as a script. It's not until children really reach stage four that they're ready for questions.

23:48

So when they're in that self-generated stage of grammar, so in stage one and stage two and stage three, what we want to use is more declarative language. So instead of saying do you want a drink, we might say I'm thirsty or let's get a drink. And you'll listen as I'm saying these. I'm using my intonation as well. It's very musical and that's really important. It's very musical and that's really important.

24:25

Um, so we, we are using declarative language. We are avoiding questions, particularly in those early stages. Um, and the other thing that you notice as well is that I used I. So what we are also trying to do is to use language from the child's perspective, because if they're going to pick it up in these chunks, we want to say it from their perspective. So rather than saying can I help you, we might say I need help because we're saying it from our child's perspective. So we'll use lots of I, me, mine, my and let's or we and us. So we're going to use those kind of pronoun forms as well. We're not going to use too much language. I've already said about the power of silence, but we want to keep it so that we're not overwhelming our children, so that we're just giving them things that are going to be really meaningful to them.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

25:22

That's really interesting, because it's a completely different way of how you would interact with your children actually. And are there certain ages that are associated with the stages, or does it differ and vary from child to child?

Cathy ShillingGuest

25:36

It's completely variable from child to child. It's completely variable from child to child, unlike our knowledge of, say, analytical language processors and we've kind of got information roughly around their ages and stages With our gestalt language processors. We might not know that they're GLPs until much later on. Some parents will say, well, I didn't even know he was a GLP. But, reflecting back, this was how he spoke and sometimes some children go through the stages really really quickly. Others may take much longer and during the conference Marge Blanc presented on older students, sort of young people and adults who may communicate at stage two and that might be their style of communication. So when she originally did her study on her 85 clients, there was a high percentage of them that moved through at least to stage four and more. But we can't put an age on it. It could be at any stage and I think what we need to focus on is really how they're communicating, what they want, their perspective, what are their interests, what are their sensory preferences, and perhaps we might talk about that. I'm jumping the gun.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

27:11

No, absolutely, because I think that's a great place to jump to kind of is how you can, you can, uh, how you can support better, you know, as a parent.

Cathy ShillingGuest

27:21

Yeah, so we've. I've talked about kind of like communication supports, but one of the key things I think that I've really learned uh, supporting the GLPs, um is, firstly, not all GLPs are autistic.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

27:37

So we haven't even touched upon that yet, though, kathy. So I mean cause you know, um, yeah, and this is great, so is. Is it associated I guess it is associated quite highly with autism? Is, is what that? Yeah?

Cathy ShillingGuest

27:48

it is, but not necessarily. I'm working with a little girl who doesn't have a diagnosis of autism and is definitely a GLP, so it can. We know that many of our autistic children may learn language in this, with this style of language acquisition, but not for all. But what is important with our gestalt language processes is first, thinking about regulation. So when are our children most regulated? What kind of sensory needs, what sensory preferences do they have? So again, thinking about some of the children that I'm working with, some of those children are most regulated when they're on the move, and that's when we hear the most communication. Being on a swing, jumping on a trampoline, on a peanut ball, moving backwards and forwards, running, chasing games that might be their sensory preference. Others, like the little girl that I was working with today, loved loud noises and what I would describe as quite stimulating activities. So we were using rocket balloons today and that was uh. That created lots of opportunities to share attention, to share an interest, and her uh, she started um, using spoken. She kept coming up to me after each turn of the balloon going off and saying there you go. And again her language was just like that. So, sensory thinking, you know how let's think about when a child is most communicative. What are those sensory needs, what are those sensory preferences, what are their play preferences, what do they really like? So I would always ask a parent before they come to see me what does your child really enjoy, what do they like playing with? And I remember a parent commenting and saying, oh, my goodness, you've got um all of the uh, hey doougie toys and hey dougie books and and, oh, look and water gosh, she loves these. And sort of looked and said, well, it wasn't kind of by accident, you, you'd put it down. So I wanted to really go with that, to have something that would really, um, be exciting and intrinsically motivating for for your daughter and you know talking about, you know play preferences.

30:24

Being child led is really really, really important. We want our children to communicate because they're intrinsically motivated to do so. By setting things up so that we know that they're going to enjoy it is great. But when we talk about child led, what do we mean? Previously I might have thought that having some things out that they liked and then I'm trying to extend their play or trying to extend their language, is child led. It's not. Child led is watching what that child is interested in, child led is watching what that child is interested in. It's not steaming in and trying to extend their play. It might just be saying an odd word, bearing in mind that we're trying to be at or phrase, and that we're trying to be, um, also mindful of being quiet as well. Um, it might be, um that we, we just sit back and watch them and allow them just to, in, you know, be involved in the play. They may not want us, um, I always say there's the, the golden nugget.

31:31

So one of the uh, our little glps came to see me a couple of weeks ago and, um, she was singing songs. She was singing old Macdonald had a farm, so we got all the farm animals out and, uh, and lots of different ways of using animals. So I've got little houses with animals inside and they've got like little holes on. She was putting them on her fingers and then that reminded her of the song with five fingers, tommy thumb, tommy thumb. And so she started singing that and then she was singing Old Macdonald had a Farm. So I thought I've got an idea. I'm going to engage with her in what she's interested in. But instead of singing Old Macdonald had a farm. I sang Old Macdonald had a tractor. This little girl looked at me. She looked up this great big smile on her face and absolutely laughed her little socks off. And then, a little bit later on in the session, she then used that same phrase. She said Old Macdon had a tractor and then looked right at me while she was singing it because it was meaningful to her.

32:43

So one of the things we're not going to do with our GLPs is we want their language to be intrinsically motivating for them for things that they're interested in. So we're not going to do perhaps what I might have done with my analytical language processor, which might be to leave a gap, like old MacDonald had a, and wait for the child to fill the gap in. I'm not going to do that because that's what we might describe as prompting. We don't want to prompt their language, we want it to come from them. We don't want to go one, two, three and try, you know, ready, steady. What we want the child to do is is is to say ready, steady, go, because it's intrinsically motivating for them. So it's quite a different way of supporting our children and I think the going I mean I'm going to say the key things back again, but not asking questions, really not using too much language, talking from the child's perspective are really, and lots and lots of intonation are going to be key things for the child.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

33:59

Absolutely. And I mean it makes so much sense when you put it and you contextualize it like that and in my mind I'm wondering, like A very difficult for parents, I would imagine, to get to the skill, but great to have that knowledge to be able to try. Then we talk about school and how this works within schools. With children, I imagine much easier in the kind of reception earlier where they have free play and that kind of an environment. But as they get older how challenging that might be for them and how challenging also for their teachers as well.

Cathy ShillingGuest

34:34

I think it is, and I think we can certainly hopefully offer opportunities for children to have some child led learning play during their day, maybe some. What we haven't talked about is literacy, and I'll perhaps come on to that in a minute, but I'm not going to get into a political discussion around our curriculum and really I guess it isn't set up for many of our children who learn differently, who acquire language differently, who think differently. It's just not set up for them. What we can do is do our best is to think about regulation, is to think about their sensory preferences, is to think about the language that we're using with them, and even if we only manage some of those bits throughout the day, then that's one thing.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

35:39

I imagine also that you know the parents who have been the detectives have understood what those blocks look like and what they mean, communicating that with the teachers and you know, helping them to understand what their child means when they say things, because it must be incredibly frustrating if you feel you know what you're saying but other people don't pick up on what you're saying. I could imagine how that leads to emotional dysregulation because you're not being understood. That having that open communication with parents who've educated themselves with a specialist like you and have learned, and then passing that on to the teacher so that they can understand the child better and and and, as you say, provide opportunities for them as well.

Cathy ShillingGuest

36:20

Yes, I think that's communication. Communication is key. We're not just talking about the child here, but you've raised a really important point about communicating with parents and parents sort of letting school know about and me, you know, I ask parents, I say, look, you know, what do you think your child means? There was a great example that Dr Barry Prezant gave during our recent conference about a young girl that he was working with in a class and she was going around using say R and and she kept saying it over and over again and actually what that meant was my throat sore. So she remembered going to the doctor and her mum was helping her, saying say ah, and that was related to a time when she'd got a sore throat. So when she was saying say ah, say ah, and she was becoming quite dysregulated and upset because she was in pain, she'd got sore throat, but she didn't have the, the um, individual words, she just had her her gashed out her script to say to indicate that she was in pain, and and he rang the parent up and said look, you know she keeps saying say ah, say ah. And then her mum immediately said ah, that's because she had a sore throat and it's probably likely that she's feeling a bit under the weather to supporting GLPs in this way and setting up situations so that there is opportunity for child-led rethinking their own communication, offering support, making sure that their play preferences are met and then thinking about what some of the um scripts might mean.

38:32

We had a really lovely uh sort of situation where we were working with a child who um didn't have the communication ability to um say to her friends at playtime I want to play with you and so, with uh, working closely with her class teacher, we created like a little social story, but it had a script with it can I play please, or can I join you? And um. And it just worked a treat. Within a week she was joining in at playtime. So this was a little girl that was just stood on the periphery just watching, really wanting to be involved, but didn't have the communication ability or didn't have the words to ask to join in. And actually then there was part of this story also had a section where it said what you know, sometimes my friend might say no, and, and that's okay, and then I can go and find somebody else and say can I play? And? And that situation did arise and then she went off and found somebody else, so it all worked really really well.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

39:50

That's brilliant. I mean it's, you know, just a little bit of an intervention there. What a huge difference to that child's playtime and social interaction and emotional well-being from that small you know, helping hand, so to speak, and understanding. So you'd mentioned literacy as well, which opens up a whole nother. How does this kind of language processing impact literacy, or does it?

Cathy ShillingGuest

40:13

So literacy is an area that is still needs a lot more research.

40:19

What I can tell you about is what I've learned from Marge Blanc, from Alexandria Zakos and my own observations over the last few years working with gestalt language processors, and one of the signs that our child might be a gestalt language processor is also a strong interest in numbers, letters, words. We might observe children reading almost before they're talking, so they might be repeating words that they've seen. I've got a little one who he can repeat the whole alphabet and in fact my presentation at the conference I showed a video of a little girl who was toddling and was literally going up to the alphabet freeze on her wall and repeating all of the letters in sequence um, fabulously, um, and so that can kind of give us a bit of a an indication that maybe the child might be a gestalt language processor. But they're showing what we would describe as being hyperlexic, so that means that they're showing an awareness of literacy before any formal literacy training. So I know with those children that I've just mentioned, neither of them had been given any literacy training or support.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

41:50

Tutoring or coaching, like some parents do?

Cathy ShillingGuest

41:52

yeah, yeah, nothing, it was just something that a was intrinsically motivating. So I know, with those children, what am I going to get out? The magnetic letters might be seem really boring to other people, but actually it's their play, it's their play preference. So when their play preference, so when we talk, you know that kind of sorry I'm dotting about a bit. I won't dot, I'll come back to that. But we know that it might be that that's how they're learning scripts.

42:17

I know there was another little boy who would literally be able to listen to a story and then reread the whole thing himself because he was hyperlexic. What does that kind of tell us? But maybe, particularly in the early stages, traditional phonics may not be what that child is going to find easy to pick up literacy. Why? Because they are processing in whole units, phics, uh, yeah, our individual units. So they may do better to have like whole words written up with either symbols or pictures, um, whole sentences again, rather than just like individual words. Um, that might be particularly in those early stages. It might not be till they get on much later.

43:12

And it brings me on to a story about a little boy that I worked with who, um, I shared this with his teacher. I said, oh, you know, I'm not really sure that phonics is at the stage that he's at at the moment is going to be really supportive for him. And then, sure enough, he was. Uh, he loved the phonics session because, guess what? They were all songs.

43:33

So they learned phonics through these videos in school that were related to songs and there was a when he was learning W, it was what is for wolf, and and he learned that as a script and he just thought it was the most hilarious thing. So actually, when he went what is for wolf, what he really meant is this is really funny. So I modelled back to him this is really funny. And then he started using that instead of what is for wolf. But it's an example really of maybe they're not, you know, quite in that area to be able to learn the individual units when they're in the early stages. Again, I don't want to get political, because our teachers are required to teach phonics, teach phonics, and again it's that whole. You know, our education service maybe isn't set up to support all children.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

44:35

It's quite, quite rigid if we, if we, if we dare say so, be a little controversial myself and and you know it, it actually it expands my mind even further. I know you said that they're not all autistic, but also if you think about an autistic child, how they cognitively cope in terms of things have to be in a certain order and if things go out of order it can be very upsetting. So if one was to extrapolate from GSL to cognitive functioning as well, it frames it well in my mind in terms of why that would be so disrupting. If you've learned it all in a chunk or you're comfortable with things in a chunk, is it? Would that be an okay leap to make, and has there been research on that?

Cathy ShillingGuest

45:21

Yeah, absolutely. And, if you, there's some really interesting work by Rachel Dorsey SLP around gashed out thinkers or gashed out cognitive processes, and it kind of really explains why when a child is, say, used to a specific routine so say, for example, every single day mum comes to the school gate to pick them up, she always has a snack and a drink for them, but on this one day mum slipped on the pavement, so it's somebody else going to pick them up and that can just create that's not their gestalt, that's not their episode, their whole thinking. So it can be really really challenging for children, or even within an activity, activity if the activity doesn't quite look the same, um, if they aren't able to complete their whole episode as well. With an activity like um, you know, I made the fatal mistake of having an alphabet puzzle and v had gone missing and that really dysregulated the child that I was working with, because their concept, their understanding, is as a whole, not bits, missing. So that can be quite tricky as well.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

46:39

But understanding that then really helps you to support that child and to again understand where they're coming from and that can give empathy, both from a parent and from an educator, to why that's so disruptive for a child. When we might think, oh, what's the big deal?

Cathy ShillingGuest

46:53

It's just a V, you know, to who greets them first thing in the morning when they come into preschool or school. Has that routine changed in some way? It explains why sometimes transitions are can be quite challenging for our children, particularly if they're new. You know, when you sort of like you introduce suddenly World Book Day, everybody in school is no longer wearing uniform. Now they're wearing whatever they quite fancy, you know, fancy that relates to the book. That can be really dysregulating because that's not how our concept of school is.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

47:40

Yeah, it explains things. Which is always fascinating to me is to be able to have that window into the mind and to understand because it can be confusing as to why that can be so upsetting, and how you've described it today makes a lot of sense. What would you advise parents who are listening to this podcast if they think, wow, you know, this really resonates with me. This sounds like my child. What would be the first steps that they should take? Or what would be the first steps that they should take, or what would you recommend for them if this is what they suspect?

Cathy ShillingGuest

48:12

So I think, before we jump in and say, oh, my child's a GLP, I would never say that on a first session to a parent. I think sort of taking lots of information from parents, observing them, asking parents to send me video clips so that I can build a picture, is really important. But if you are suspecting and parents know their children better than anybody else they understand them, they are, they're observing them in lots and lots of different situations you might. If you can access a speech and language therapist, that is a really good place to start. If you wanted to find out more information.

48:59

As a service, the Speech Dem, we post lots on social media about gestalt language processes and how to support them. We also run courses for both parents and educational professionals. Um, there are a lot. There's lots of information out there. Marge blanc, her um website, natural communication center, um has um lots of information and free handouts and videos to watch, as does Meaningful Speech. Alexandria Zakos has a one hour webinar that's free. It's a masterclass in understanding gashed up language processes. There's lots and lots of information out there.

49:53

Um, there's loads of other accounts that I, you know, find fascinating as well. Occupational therapy uh, kelsey olds again talks a lot about regulation and supporting children through play um and looking at their play preferences um. Just trying to think who else there is that I I really follow as well. Crescendo communication um corinne zmoose talks about the musicality, particularly because she's a dual qualified speech and language therapist and um a music therapist. Uh, happy chatters down in london run support groups and groups for children after school clubs um, many of whom are gestalt language processors. So specifically runs groups for um autistic children and their families um down in South, which is really, really amazing. But yeah, there's a lot of information out there that parents could access and it's free as well. Some of the Instagram accounts are just a great way of having like an immediate, like quick idea of a strategy or a support that might help.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

51:10

That's fabulous, and you know what I'll do is I will get you to send me an email with all of those details and then I'll include it in the show notes, because that's a wealth of information there.

51:18

But I think it's also key what you said don't jump to the conclusion at first. Go and seek a professional, if you can, to help, and the school can also be there to help you in terms of getting that specialist kind of insight into your child. But there's probably also a lot you can do in the interim as well, from what you've said. So that's amazing because I think one of the most frustrating things for anyone at any age, is not being able to be understood and not being able to communicate, and so I think it's really key here from what you've told us today is the understanding. Any age you know is not being able to be understood and not being able to communicate, and so I think it's really key here from what you've told us today is to the understanding and then the decoding, as you say, so that we can support them while they move through those stages in terms of understanding.

Cathy ShillingGuest

52:04

Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think that's just trying to work out. Also, when is my child most communicative? What is it? I touched a bit on play preferences but again, what I really like about understanding gestalt language processes is that it's really neurodiversity affirming out language processes. Is that it's really neurodiversity affirming so.

52:32

When we think about play, all play is valid. So I've got children who absolutely love sea creatures and dinosaurs. I've got another little one who would spend the whole session with the rocket balloon, another one who's singing songs this is all play. A parent who said, talking about his little boy previously he'd enjoyed lots of movement so we would take the session out into the garden. That was his play. That was when we were getting the most communication, communication, uh, and then the pet. That particular parent sent me a text to say actually, at the moment he's really into saucepans and wooden spoons. He just likes stirring, making the noise around the around the saucepan or hitting it. So I had to quickly go into the kitchen and go and get some things out ready for the session.

53:27

But what I'm trying to get at is play isn't necessarily about that expensive toy or things that we might traditionally think of as play. Play is what motivates the child, not us. And I always remember a very wise health visitor telling me as a parent of very young children remember you will get bored of that activity way before they do. And I think about the story farmer will and I must have read it every night for six months. It had to be part of our routine. It was really important to my child at that time, um, and I was so bored of farmer will, but my son definitely wasn't. It was, you know, it felt kind of safe, it felt like part of his routine and he loved it yeah, and and that's where it sounds like the magic happens and they progress with language.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

54:27

Is is tying those things together is is, you know, and and being and being quiet, which I know for me is very difficult, and I, I, you know, I think for all parents, we always try to jump in or fix, or question or or put words in our children's mouth. So also, I think your advice about being quiet is, uh, is a good one, if, if, a little bit difficult.

Cathy ShillingGuest

54:47

We've. You know, that's how we've all been taught to communicate with our children. As a speech and language therapist, when I was at university, I didn't learn about gestalt language processing. I didn't learn about how to support children who may learn language differently, learn language differently and actually, even if we suspect that they are a GLP and we get it wrong, even if our child is an analytical language processor, they're still going to benefit from those kind of supports and pick up language, regardless of how we are communicating with them. So I think it's you know, if you're suspecting, then give it a go and see if those supports help. It's you know, if you're suspecting, then give it a go and see if those supports help.

55:32

I think silence is really really key. I frequently video myself in sessions A because I want to look at how the child's communicating and get any nuggets down that I might not miss. That I might miss because I'm really focused on the child. But also I watch myself and I think about how I'm communicating with a child and invariably I think saying a little bit too much, they're not giving them chance to actually create the kind of scripts that will be useful in other scenarios, like school and out and about.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

56:15

I think is also another real nugget, which actually brings me to my. You know this has been a fascinating conversation and I always ask at the end of our podcast, as you're aware, of what three top tips and that's hard because there's been a lot in this session would you give listeners to take away from them with them.

Cathy ShillingGuest

56:34

Number one avoid using questions, particularly in those early stages, I think. Change up a question into a declarative remark, so instead of saying oh, what's that, we might say it's a car, for example. The second one is using intonation. As you've just heard, they're using songs and intonation and rhythm. Whether that be in play with books, um it, you know, it doesn't matter, even just daily routines. Try and use lots of intonation, uh, when you are speaking, um, and silence. I think that is the. The third, those, those are the three that I think are really, really important is is actually allowing uh, not necessarily narrating everything that our child is doing. I remember, as a parent, I felt that, as a parent of young, young children, that I felt that that was something I needed to do, and I've definitely learned with our glps that actually silence is golden and that's when we get their own motivation, particularly during their child led play, where they might want to say something or communicate in some way.

Dr Olivia KesselHost

57:55

I think those are three really good tips and, as you say, there's no harm in trying them out right now. So you know it's something that listeners can take away right now if they're suspecting that their child might be a GLP, that they can take away with them and just use and see what happens. So I think that you know really, really interesting. And you know you also said that you're going to have Marge's book available at the Speech Den. So we will include all of that information and all of those lovely resources you have told us in this podcast in the show notes, because knowledge and empowerment is what this podcast is all about. And you have definitely delivered today, kathy.

58:30

So thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you, thank you for listening. Send Parenting Tribe. If you haven't already, please click on the link in the show notes to join us in the private Send Parenting what's Up community. It's been wonderful to be able to communicate with everyone in the community and for us to join together to help each other to navigate challenges and to also celebrate successes. Wishing you and your family a really good week ahead, thank you you.