So in the very short 30-minute session, the therapists have to mimic washing hands, water, and then using that as a practice to engage the children about verbalizing their day. And so if you think that a certain vocabulary would need 20 exposures to be able to get locked inside a little head, that 20 times can be reached so much faster.
The parents are the one that's doing it. The caregivers are the ones that's showing it. Exemplifying and demonstrating it to the children.
Welcome to Discerning Parenting, the podcast for parents of kids aged 12 and under who have learned the hard way that a one-size-fits-all all approach to parenting won't shift the needle for you, your child, or your family.
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If you feel like you've been stumbling your way through parenthood and you're ready to leave behind fight-or-flight mode parenting, then this is the podcast for you. I'm Dr. Victoria Ang Nolasco, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician and positive parenting coach on a mission to help you release your parenting guilt so you can become laser-focused on what will truly work for you.
Maybe you have worries about your child's development. If you've been worried about speech and language delays or developmental delays, but maybe you experience some frustration because you need to see a professional about this, but you've been told that there's a waiting list of a few months. And I know that in your heart, you're having all these worries.
Maybe you're panicking. You feel like, what am I going to do? Right now. And in the meantime, how do I help my child? Today, I've invited Dr. Amy Kwok. She's a physician turned entrepreneur and also a global citizen because she has hailed from different parts of the world. She is, she completed her doctor of medicine from Peking University and finished her master's in public health from Harvard.
So, she's the co-founder and CEO of Penguin Smart. So, it's her advocacy to scale the reach of developmental therapists. And she has also built systems that have helped families in India, and Tanzania, And also at Peking University Third Hospital, the George Institute, and Wellframe. And I'm so happy to have Dr.
Kwok is with me today to talk about parenting interventions. What we can do if you're waiting for interventions or your child is already receiving therapy As parents, what can we do to help our kids? So, thank you Dr. Amy for, I know that we just squeezed in this short interview and this is really a busy time for you.
So, thank you for being here on the Discerning Parenting podcast. My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me on. I'm happy to share what I know. Can you talk about this idea of parenting intervention? So, what It is and how it can help parents who would be the parents and kids who would benefit most from parenting interventions.
So I'm currently the CEO and founder of Penguin Smart. We do digital solutions for parent-led parenting. interventions, particularly in speech and language therapy. What this means is that for speech and language therapy, oftentimes there are a lot of things that families can do to engage the kids for communication because fundamentally, unlike muscle control or, or these motion trainings, communication training It comes down to communication between two people.
So there's always someone on the other end for communication development. And parents are really in the best place to be that person on the other end, inviting the children to participate in a communication exercise. And so parent-led intervention really is honing in on the idea that there is a, there's a methodology.
And there is a framework and there are ways to effectively helping parents become the communication impartners and communication enablers as the children grow from nonverbal to verbal or from one, from pointing language to actual verbal language. And so this is a really critical process. We want to share.
One thing that we were talking about, what, who will really benefit from parent-led intervention is mainly in the age range where parents are creating the full environment for the children. So the younger ages, before they go to school full time, before they are overwhelmed to school work, in the time under six years old when their brain are developing and the world, their world are their parents.
This is a time where parents can form the habits. How to form their, form their routines, form the way they talk during mealtime, form the way that emotions are educated and communicated. And if you rely on the therapist to teach your kids how to understand emotions, how to understand context of communication, you're missing out because communication happens in real life.
And that's the goal. Oftentimes, in language-delayed children, what therapists have to do in their very limited session is that they have to pretend they're washing hands and then add in the terminology about. Now, this is turning on the faucet, letting the water flow, here is your towel is so soft. Thank you.
Let's wash our hands. So in the very short 30-minute session, the therapists have to mimic washing hands, water, and then using that as a practice to engage the children about verbalizing their day. For parents, You will at least wash your hands multiple times a day, before meal, after meal, before bathroom time, after bathroom time, and all these opportunities you have to wash your hands.
And if you think that certain vocabulary would need 20 exposures to be able to get locked inside a little head, that 20 times can be reached so much faster. The parents are the one that's doing it. The caregivers are the ones that's showing it. Exampling and demonstrating it to the children, rather than waiting for a therapist to demonstrate it in the very limited time they have.
Once a week, or once every two weeks, or once every month. Does that make sense? Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And I know that some parents listening to this might be feeling worried. On one hand, they're thinking, Oh no, I haven't been doing this with my child. So sometimes when they hear about parent-led interventions, the parenting guilt sets in.
And I want to assure you, it has nothing to do with parenting. saying that you are not doing enough for your child. If you're listening to this, I know you're already doing so much, working so hard to provide the best home environment for your child. So it's not about saying that you're not doing enough, but we want that hard work that you are doing to move towards the things that you desire and the things that you dream of.
And I know that there are parents who also feel overwhelmed and ask themselves, can I do it? Isn't this something that is better left to the expert? So, Dr. Amy, what has your experience been? And what have you seen? Yeah, so in Penguin Smart, we have, in the past six years, we've worked with families around 37 cities around the world, in multiple languages, in bilingual family situations, multilingual family situations, multigenerational living situations, and such.
I think that fundamentally, when it comes to what can, what can parents do, what is the fear, we want to encourage you, we are not trying to turn you into a therapist. One of the fears, I'm not professional, I don't know how to do this. In communication training and exercises, frequency and availability is more important than precise.
It's more important for the children to see sentences being demonstrated by people around them than you wait for the most certified person to demonstrate how to say that one sentence. Because communication is about just getting along with people. One of the, one of the fear about why I don't know if I can do this because I don't have the time.
Then I would propose the opposite. Because you don't have the time, Why are you spending it on waiting around for someone else to help you? Why are you, why are you not looking at your child, uh, at this point? One of the key thing about Parental Intervention that we really focus on is on we want to encourage parents that it is about you and you conveying your thoughts and your ideas, emotions, and exchanging that with your child.
You, so many parents are working so hard and trying to find the resources outside for their children. Running around trying to schedule things on phone calls and trying to take them on, taking them on rides and driving them around. You're forgetting your child sitting right next to you. Sometimes just conversation, asking them, just conversation that with techniques that is right for their age that would unlock a lot more relational quota as well.
And children are desiring that as you work so hard to try to get them things outside. Children are, at this age, are desiring you're looking at them and then looking at what they're looking, what they're desiring and what they're attracted to. And they're so thrilled when parents are engaged. Say, oh, you're interested in this toy.
One of the techniques that we often say is, technique is of following the children in their play, directing them how to play. Children are so thrilled to see their parents actually taking the time to sit down next to them on the floor, holding another card, trying to copy them. Following the cars, going on tracks, because that usually doesn't happen, because mommy and daddy usually don't have time for that.
And so having time to use these techniques of listening, techniques of delayed gratification, techniques of, of asking options, giving them a chance to verbally convey what they want. A, B choices, A, B, C choices. Having stopping for them to feel like they're being seen is super, super encouraging for children.
And in turn, that kind of relational quota comes back in a very, in overwhelming affections to the parents as well. And so in the parallel intervention model of when parents say, Oh, wait, I don't think I can do this. You're basically, you're giving up a opportunity to really bond with your children. So I want to encourage the families that they feel that they've done a lot and they feel they've been frustrated.
They go, I try reading books with them. I try doing things with them. We would say that in parallel intervention model, it's not about, it's about you be willing to continue trying, because as you continue to try, your children will respond, and they will continue to respond as well. Yeah, so it's not about us being perfect as parents, but about us being present and communicating with our kids.
And if we think about all of the Time and effort we're already spending, this is actually a way that we can direct that time and effort towards something that will eventually lead us to what we want and to our goals also as parents and the things that we dream about for ourselves as parents and for our kids.
And is there actually evidence about this? So could you tell us about the, there's actually a lot of. Uh, evidence about how parent led interventions, uh, can make all the difference between a child's, in a child's improvement. One of the most referenced articles is a research article from Professor Roberts in the U.
S. She has, she and her team had compiled from research studies from around the world for the past 30 years. Research paper publications about Parent and child interaction about parallelep intervention in different ways and models, and trying to assess from the different paper, what is the, what categories of communication development really benefit from this model, and what age, how it helps.
And overwhelmingly, even though it's, even at a very simple intervention of parents acknowledging they're intentionally trying to implement one or two tactics a day, or one or two tactics That's being taught to them. We have seen seeing a scientifically visible difference in how children the language ability being unlocked and progress.
We see overall there are improvements across the board for articulation, for sentence structure, for Social communication and emotional development, comprehension and expression, but most prominently for the ages and for those in the younger ages, when parents are involved, their language comprehension and language expression becomes really flourishing.
It's really flourishing, and it's a statistically significant level, so progress is even more significant than if they only relied on external speech therapists. The main reason, as I mentioned very early on, is that it's the frequency. The involvement, the frequency, the demonstration of generalization really helps.
So it's not just that at a classroom setting, kids know what to do, but now it's in the bedroom setting. Now it's the living room setting. All these areas where children are seeing how Sentences that are being said, how emotions are conveyed, and that's really helpful for the children. One of the, one of the holy grail for early intervention is parent involvement.
I've spoken to a professor, a retired pediatrician professor in, in China. She said in the early 80s, in the 1980s, when she was being, uh, representing her team to go to international conferences about pediatric development, at that point, she remembered in the early 80s, the key theme was about How parents are the key to success, and that has been the holy grail and the ongoing framework and school of thought for most of early interventionists and most of the pediatrician regarding children's success in the development.
It comes as a very common sense things as well, right, of the relational stability leading to confidence. Meaning they're more willing to take risks, meaning they're more willing to learn new things. Um, the involvement of parenting, parenting, uh, parent and child relationship, and demonstrating things also meant probably a more regular routines, more stable routines, and allowing for children to feel more secure.
And even just demonstrating conversations leading to children willing to express more of their own thoughts because someone's listening. So it helps overall with their internal processing because if they're early on, they learn their verbal processor and they have a venue to process their thoughts.
This is science. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. So any last words or takeaways for our listeners? I want to share how, so I want to share about how it's actually done. What is the key to this process? As I said, parent involvement is one of the key factors for success. But what is the factor for success for parents who are involved?
For children, parents are the success. For parents, the, for the, the tools and the key to success is that having guidance, very guidance, regular guidance that is customized to their family. Having regular updates to what they should do. Having someone they can regularly contact to discuss how to unlock the situations.
I think it's come down to behavior science, right? If you have in behavior science and say, if you want to implement new habits, implement new ways of doing things, you need to do at least 20 times to make it into a habit. And if you're stuck, someone is ready to share with you what is, what to do. And so in Penguin Smart, we're using, we are using digital solutions and remote, remote communication and teletherapy.
Main reason is because we want to make sure that most, the effort of receiving information is not the main effort. The effort, the main effort should be spent on Implementing and unblocking, being stuck. And so, receiving information of making sure the information we give is only in short snippets at a time for best absorption.
But in implementation, really having trackers, having these exercises of how to actually break them down, and steps to do that, and examples of how it should be done. That's the most helpful part. And having someone there to help unblock. Say, parents are trying to do certain activities and exercises. With the guidance from therapists, with the consultation in mind, they know what the purpose is.
But in the actual implementation, they see examples of how it can be done. Um, a more concrete example would be if in, oftentimes in sessions, therapists would say, Oh, you should go back. You should read to your children and try to encourage, try to demonstrate more verbs. Try to demonstrate more diversity in sentence structure.
So now, with that instruction in mind, the parents will be thinking, how do I do that? I don't know, so maybe they will go and buy more books. But is buying more books the best way? Probably not. So maybe then we would, in our digital platform, we would recommend specific exercises that would demonstrate, oh, this is how you insert more verbs into a sentence using a book.
And then parents are like, okay, I can do this as one book. Can I also do this? Can I also do this with a poster on the wall? Yes. So then now, with an idea, with a clear example in mind, the parents can then start implementing throughout their days. Oh, look, there's a book, there's an instruction, there's a manual, there's a poster, there's a bus stop sign, there's an ad poster.
Then now you suddenly have all these different books. Vessels become props for you to implement the same technique. This is how we're thinking about this. If they are stuck, children are not responding, then the parents can text message their assistant, say, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. What else can I do?
And the assistant will say, here's another way you can try it. It's really a big problem that the assistant council solves. So this is something worth discussing with therapist in next session. Thank you for sharing that. And we'll link in the show notes to Dr. Amy's side and in the show notes you'll also find a link to our resources at this learning parenting.
If you go to this learning parenting.com/toolkit, we have a parenting toolkit which has guide to some sample activities. For language stimulation, creating a routine, which are also some of the things that we can talk about. So be sure to check out the links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Dr. Amy, and we hope you have to have you again here on the Discerning Parenting Podcast.
So if you enjoyed listening to Dr. Amy, be sure to follow the Discerning Parenting Podcast so that in the future we'll be having her on again and you're not going to miss it. Thank you.