All About Collaborating with Speech Language Pathologists – Episode 74- with Dr. Leah Beekman
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
About our guest:
Dr. Leah Beekman Ph.D.,CCC-SLP completed a doctoral program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Currently, she holds a role as a clinical assistant professor at Chapman University in Irvine, California and has a small private practice, Unless Therapy. What she loves best about her job is helping a child find their voice, and helping them express who they are. Dr. Beekman was introduced to the Deaf and HOH community at birth since her father has lost a majority of his hearing. When she’s not working as a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), you can find Dr. Beekman taking a hike on a beautiful trail within The Golden State!
This week on the All About Audiology podcast:
- 8:40 – Kids can start to identify sarcasm at a pretty young age. If a child is not exposed to sarcasm while growing up, a child may find it hard to identify and interpret sarcasm during their future social interactions.
- 13:00 – Within her doctoral program, Dr. Beekman’s team utilized a play-based research study strategy in which they were able to detect a language disorder within watching a child play for five minutes.
- 18:40 – Dr. Beekman utilizes play therapy during her sessions. For adults who are skeptical about play-based therapy, she encourages parents or caregivers to sit in on a session or to sift through the data that SLP’s collect.
- 22:30 – Due to Dr. Beekman’s upbringing, her preferred choice of communication is total communication. Though, how a family unit decides to have their deaf or HoH child communicate should be based upon their environment.
- 30:00 – In hopes of maximizing the way a child communicates, it is important to constantly label items in one’s environment and also to regularly read to a child so that a child can develop a rich vocabulary.
- 40:00 – Collaborating with other professionals is vital to all clients regardless of their age. It is important for everyone on a team to bring their expertise and be part of a united front in helping a client live a meaningful and convenient life.
For more resources and research visit:
All About Audiology Facebook group
Find and connect with Dr. Beekman:
Related Episodes:
- All About Speech Therapy – Episode 19
- Episode 40: All About Teletherapy- Episode 40 – Season 3 wrap-up with Stacy Crouse, SLP
- All About Listening and Spoken Language – Episode 72 with Dr. Carol Flexer
Next up on All About Audiology:
All About Celebrating 50,000 Downloads – Episode 75
Transcript:
Dr. Leah Beekman, PhD:
Collaboration is so vital to our clients, regardless of their age, because if we don’t work together, and we don’t have a common goal, we’re not helping the client, we’re not helping that child the best that we can. So when we come as a united front, as parents and therapists and audiologists, you know everybody working together. This is the best approach to talk about total communication.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Welcome back to the All About Audiology Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein and this is the show where we talk about audiology and how it impacts your life, not just about audiograms and hearing tests. And also for those of us who are working with our patients, our students and our colleagues from the professional side – and I love that about our community – come join us over at Facebook and on Instagram. Lots of really fun activities and what a beautiful community of both professionals and families and, you know, having these conversations, that’s what it’s all about.
So today on the show, we’re going to be talking about our dear SLP colleagues and this SLP/AUD alliance, if you will. [laughs] Do you know that Tik Tok that’s [mimics Tik Tok] “Do you want to form an alliance with me?” [normal pitch] Okay, now I’m just showing that I’m spending too much time on social media. Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Dr. Leah Beekman.
LB:
Thank you. It’s so nice to be here.
LS:
I really do love SLPs and I feel like so many of us started out on undergrad, Comm-Psy, communication disorders. So I’d love to hear a little about your background, how you got into the field and what you do now.
LB:
So I was first introduced to the field when I was in high school and my high school guidance counselor told my best friend and I that we needed to stay out of trouble for the summer, so she suggested that we go work at a multi-disciplinary clinic for the summer. And this was my first introduction to this field in general so Speech Language Pathology, Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy.
My original plan when I graduated high school was to be a pediatric psychiatrist, and then someone actually had commented that I was really good at this summer job that I had been doing for all these years and had I considered going into one of those fields? And I thought that seems like a good idea. I do love giving out stickers and blowing bubbles. [Leah laughs] So this was my very limited perception of Speech Language Pathology. [Both laugh] And so I took some time, and I took some time off and then I started college around 21, actually. So, a little bit later. And I said yep, I’m going to be a speech language pathologist. That sounds great.
So I dove right in. Never changed my major. I went straight through with my master’s and got my degree in New Jersey and then I started doing my clinicals. It’s called a CFY, so the certified fellowship year, and I was working in a public school. I absolutely adored it, which I never thought I would. I didn’t want to work in public schools. I didn’t want to work with middle schoolers. I wanted to be on a cranial-facial team. But circumstances didn’t work out, so I didn’t get that job. I ended up in public middle school, completely fell in love, and then one day, I realized that my students were really struggling with sarcasm and social interaction and I tried to find data. I tried to find materials and I couldn’t find anything.
At the time there was very little information for middle school students and their social skills and how that impacted their academics, so I thought, oh, someone should really do something about this. So I think I’ll quit my job and go get my doctorate in this.
LS:
[as LB] Someone…Why not me?
LB:
[laughs] Right. I will be that someone. So I quit my job and I moved to Cleveland, Ohio. I had never even been to Cleveland prior to my interview with this university. I got accepted into a doctoral program and I spent four years of my life studying, basically, the impacts of sarcasm on social and academic communication in middle schoolers. Very fun.
So, I ended up looking at a lot of different ambiguous language. So, I looked at metaphors, paradoxes, oxymorons. Kind of all that kind of stuff that’s more academic based and I spent some time developing a new testing protocol and I developed a new intervention. So this intervention approach basically is how do we teach kids to identify and then appropriately respond to sarcasm? So, it was really fun. I had a ball. I also got to do some really cool stuff with some lower socioeconomic families, which was a really rewarding experience within the lab, as well, because we were doing free testing at a local pediatrician’s office and kind of coming up with new testing protocols for pediatricians to use, like quick screeners.
So, it didn’t take a whole lot of time but we were trying to see, can we do a 10 minute screener and it catches kids? So what we found was that 50% of the kids that we were testing actually failed and went on for full developmental evaluations and most of their parents didn’t know. Most of their parents were not aware. So it was really great to kind of spend four years developing all new testing and new interventions. So then it came time to look for a job and my thought was always, I’ll get my doctorate, I’ll move back to New Jersey, and I’ll open a private practice.
But it didn’t turn out that way. I actually fell in love with teaching and so, I decided to become a professor, which I never thought that I would do. I thought, oh no, I can’t do that, but I love it. I totally fell in love. I taught a lot at Case Western Reserve University, where I was for undergrad. I had this really amazing experience. I taught social communication in the law school to their international students that were coming in, so basically just what are the norms and the social communication for the United States which was awesome, so much fun. So I started looking for jobs and I found this job out here in California, at Chapman University, and now I am a clinical assistant professor. So, basically, that means that I teach and I do clinical work. My job is not defined by research. It’s more defined by clinic and teaching, which is wonderful. So I do research on the side, when I have time and when I want to, but my job is to teach students to become clinicians.
LS:
That is an incredible story with twists and turns.
LB:
Yeah, it’s great.
LS:
A little bit like a pinball machine, speaking of metaphors and visualizations. I’m all about that. All of my students, also with my cohort that I went to school with, they would be like, Lilach, you have an example for us? Do you have a metaphor going on? I’d be like, yep, I’m here. Here, listen to this. [Lilach laughs]
So you started out thinking you might go into something with kids, but medical. And even then when you said like psychiatrists, that’s still very focused on the child’s experience or psychological, their identity. All the things that are going on for them. And then you kind of ended up doing that after all, in a different way.
LB:
It is true because what’s really awesome about my job is that every day, whether it’s a young child or a young adult child – I say child in quotes, because my students are young, most of them. Some of them are the same age as me, some are a little older than me, but for the most part, my students at the university are in their early to mid 20s. And every day, I get to help my students find their voice and figure out who they are and I think that’s probably the most rewarding thing. There’s nothing more rewarding than being in a clinic with a child the first time that the kid says mommy or the first time the kid says their siblings name.
Definitely the most amazing thing ever, I had been practicing with a kid, who was 16 at the time — didn’t use any spoken language and we had been training the AC device. It was an eye gaze device because his whole entire body was not capable of using any other device. And we had worked for a long time and his mom happened to get to school that day and he looked at his device, and said to his mom, I love you mom. And that was the first time ever that he had ever said that to his mom, using his eye gaze device. So I’m in tears, the PT was in tears, mom’s in tears, the kid is in tears and like, everybody’s in tears.
And I thought, yeah, this is why I do what I do, because every day of my life, I get to help a child find their voice, and I get to help them express who they are and even as a professor, I get to do that, as well. I get to help young clinicians figure out who they are as a clinician, and that’s just rewarding to be able to do that. I love my career. I love my students. They’re phenomenal. I cannot even say enough about how wonderful my students are.
LS:
That’s really good. And I think especially during pandemic and online and all the things that have happened in 2020, there’s this feeling like, nobody cares about me, and like, I’m just another number. And it’s really moving to hear that you will maybe find someone good out there. And if you have a professor that is really not, you have a thing called switching classes or changing your major. That’s my advice to young students: go find someone who cares about you.
LB:
Yeah.
LS:
I’m glad I had those experiences, too, with professors who really encouraged, and were excited about what you were excited about. [sarcasm] Oh wow, passionate people in the world.
Anyway, I have a lot of questions, a lot of questions about sarcasm. Can we go there?
LB:
Absolutely, please do. [laughs]
LS:
So, what actually is sarcasm?
LB:
So the literal definition – saying one thing and meaning the opposite. That’s, I guess, your very foundational literal definition.
LS:
At what age would it be a typical development of understanding sarcasm and using it appropriately?
LB:
So that’s a really phenomenal question and unfortunately there’s not a definitive answer. So it has a lot to do with nurture and I actually do like to tell this story for a little background. I was the nanny for the family when I was in grad school and I’m a very sarcastic person, so I was teaching the boys sarcasm, constantly. And Robbie, – the youngest – we had been teaching him like, this is sarcasm. When somebody says it this way, this is sarcasm, right? And we were all standing in the kitchen one night and somebody said something, and he said, is that sarcasm? And we were all like, oh my goodness, yes, buddy. That’s right. That is sarcasm. So he had identified it at a very young age. So between three and five ish, I think. And then maybe the next day or it might have been that evening, we were all chatting, and Robbie said something like, oh yeah, I love that. And he said, Did I do that right? And we said, oh my goodness, like, yes, buddy. Yes! This is perfect. You totally did.
And then you have the other side of this where you have families that think sarcasm is so bad and you shouldn’t teach children and so they try to avoid it at all costs. And so, then, the kids are not exposed to it until maybe third grade, right? About the time that kids start to get really sarcastic. So around that eight or nine ish period, but then it’s very difficult for them to pick up on it, right? So you lose a lot of social interaction. Good, bad, indifferent. There’s a lot of social interaction that goes in between the sarcasm.
So obviously there’s cultural differences, There’s some cultures where you don’t ever use sarcasm. Obviously, I’m in the United States, my family, everybody, we’re all from here. So my family is quite sarcastic, but I definitely can appreciate there’s a big cultural aspect to that. So there’s not a definitive age. We do know that kids can start to identify it pretty young, so they can pick up that something is maybe amiss, like, you definitely didn’t mean what you said, but I don’t necessarily know what you meant.
So around that four ish mark, it is possible for them to pick up on it. Doesn’t mean that they’ll actually understand what’s going on, unless you have the nurture that’s teaching them, like, directly instructing this is sarcasm, this is how you use it.
It varies for kids but then as far as mastering sarcasm, it’s something that matures over time. And I think all of us, even as adults, have had times where we will look at someone and say, was that sarcasm? Were you being sarcastic? Right? And it depends because there’s different kinds of sarcasm, as well, so it depends on what kind the person is using. And then you add the extra confusion layer of text messaging and emailing, so any kind of written sarcasm then is just another layer of difficulty.
LS:
Even emojis. I recently learned that the thumbs up emoji is now considered among young people as: go away.
LB:
Like yeah, I heard you, okay bye. Like, thumbs up, get out of my tags, thank you.
LS:
And I’m saying like, yeah, I agree with you. So this is actually through a whole thread with a bunch of moms and they were all like, my son just told me this. My teenager. Have you heard of this? And then everyone’s talking about how yeah, we’re behind the times with Emoji meaning now and also there’s that whole big trend about the hilarious laugh face with the crying is now like an old people way to laugh. I don’t know. [laughs]
LB:
Yeah
LS:
I was wondering about the convention about forward slashes to denote sarcasm.
LB:
This has been debated for years. There was actually encouragement that we should have a question mark and an exclamation point. That there should be some kind of a punctuation for sarcasm. Right? But what the argument then becomes – and I think it’s kind of on a more researchy level – where people say, oh no, we shouldn’t do that, because sarcasm is a higher level of thinking. It’s like explaining a joke, right? So if I have to explain the joke, it doesn’t make it funny anymore. So if I have to tell you this is sarcasm, it’s not funny anymore.
So there’s a lot of debate in the research world about that.
LS:
And then I’m thinking also about the way people do that, lowercase, uppercase every other letter, and that’s kind of another way to denote I’m being silly or this is ridiculous. It’s interesting.
Ok, now my other question was, back to your screener that you were identifying certain kids for further testing. What was the thing on the differential? You’ll probably talk about certain language disorders or even Autism Spectrum Disorder, other things that are kind of doing well enough, but then you’re picking up on what exactly, after that?
LB:
So, we used one already established screener. So, it’s just a standardized screener that was part of it, but then we were simultaneously testing a screener that had been developed at the university, and it’s been great. Actually, the paper was published a couple of years ago. The results that we came up with. But it was a play based screener so basically, what this research team came up with was that we can watch children play for five minutes. So, if we give children very specific instructions for five minutes, we can watch them play and we can actually parse out a language disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, and a kid who was developing on the neuro-typical trajectory.
So, this is basically what we were testing. So, we had that standardized to compare to our own so we had a standardized for autism, we had a standardized for language, and then we had like a parent intake questionnaire, and then we had this play based task. So, it was actually really great because we were seeing that you can watch a child just play for five minutes and it is very telling, because we have very specific toys. You know this has all been heavily researched, right?
LS:
I’m sure people are like, what’s the game? I want to try it on my kid.
LB:
We had a squishy ball on purpose for like sensory input stuff. So, we had a squishy boat that had a light inside. We had cars. We had specific Beanie Babies, so it was like a bear. And we had stacking cups. So, essentially what we did is we would tell a story with the animals. So we would say, oh, Mr. Bear is hungry. He’s going to go look for some food and, oh, this is broccoli. I don’t like that. Oh, this is cookies. Everybody loves cookies, right? Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. And then we say, okay, now it’s your turn to play. You tell a story with the toys and I’m gonna listen to your story. And then you set a timer and then if the kid tries to interact with you, you would basically say like, oh I have to do my homework.
So it’s like a very distinct protocol. Those scripts that you have to read because it’s research, right? So you don’t interact with the child. So it’s very telling. Children who don’t want to interact with adults versus a child who does want to interact with an adult. Children who can tell a story. So what we found – some foundational things – is that children with language disorders would essentially be telling a story, but they wouldn’t be talking, right?
So they’re doing things with the toys, they’re manipulating them, and they’re doing things with those toys where if you watch the play, they are telling a story but they’re just not talking. So part of the script, as the researcher, you would have to say like, oh, don’t forget to say the story out loud. But if the kid has a language disorder, they don’t have the language there to tell that story, so they know in their head what they want the animals to do, but they just can’t put the words with it.
And then, if we had a kid who was potentially on the spectrum – so an autistic child – one of the things that you would see is the very classic kind of lining up of the cars or they weren’t interested in the toys, or if it would only be interested in certain toys or certain pieces of toys. We definitely had a lot of kids who would just sit with the cars and just spin the wheels and stare at the wheels, which is kind of you’re, not every child with autism does this, so there are other things that you do have to be aware of, right? So things like just kind of pushing the toys away and just sitting there, or not being interested in the toys or the adult. Like, those sorts of things that we would look for for kids and then we would do follow ups and see like did this screener actually correlate. So, when the child actually got a diagnosis or didn’t, was our screener correct?
And the results were quite impressive and wonderful. So there was this big team at Case that worked on this project and I was just fortunate enough to be a part of that, and I got to be a part of it from different angles. So my initial introduction to that particular study was before I was even at the university. I was asked to be a professional expert and I just watched videos and then I rated the kid just watching the videos. And they were actually comparing speech language pathologists to students who were students of speech language pathology. And which one of us were better at rating.
As it turned out, the students were better than other professionals, which was really funny. I was like, oh no. I’m not sure what happened with that study, but I do know that the play base, just looking at a child’s play. So I think this will be the time where I’m going to give the plug of like, play. Play is so important and we need to play with children and play based therapy is the best. And while there is benefits to drill based therapy and putting a kid in a chair, I heard this really phenomenal quote from this – I know she didn’t say it – but this, a local speech language pathologist who she’s just phenomenal. She put a quote up the other day and, gosh, I wish I could remember who said it, but it said something along the lines of, like, trying to teach a child language when they’re not interested is like throwing marshmallows at their head and saying, we’re eating. [both laugh] I was like, that’s hilarious. [continues laughing]
So, you know. Because, if a kid doesn’t care, they’re not going to learn. So what do kids care about? Kids care about playing. They care about their toys. They care about [excited voice] bubbles and stickers. Yes! Yes, so give me some bubbles, give me some stickers. Play is so important.
LS:
That’s a fascinating study. Fascinating approach. And I think, also, a big shift overall has happened in the understanding of neurodiversity as not a problem but like a difference. And how are we going to support children who think this way and learn this way? And that’s a beautiful thing. I think also among young professionals, things are definitely changing from the “there’s something wrong here” and “why aren’t you playing correctly?” Even though we’re still in a sense, pathologizing things, at least informally, I have seen the change. Would you agree with that?
LB:
I can only speak for myself and how I do therapy, but I think so and I think in Southern California, there is a big push for that. So I definitely can see even in my own private practice, the way that I approach therapy is quite different. And I don’t know if that’s more being a more seasoned clinician and being more comfortable. I know as a brand new clinician, I had a really difficult time doing child-led therapy because that kind of freaks us out, like, oh, you mean the kid has complete control of this therapy session? Like, uhh, I don’t think so.
But I literally have a client, now, who I go in with just like my data set ready on my phone because he’s so active, I can’t take data any other way. It just has to be on my phone and only when he’s taking a break do I have time to write some stuff down. But I walk into the house, and immediately it is just like, okay, what are we doing today? And I think yesterday we spent a good part of the day pretending like the pillow was farting, because he thought that was very funny.
LS:
I agree.
LB:
Yeah [Lilach chuckles]. And they’re doing… Yeah, he would do what’s funny, right? And then we spent a big part of our session doing silly dancing. So it was just that’s what he was interested in and I got so much spontaneous language yesterday, versus, you know, when you try to put him in a seat, putting them in the chair and he’s like, I don’t care about this. Like, this is just not of interest to me, and then they’re not learning the language.
LS:
I was just gonna say like, that’s gonna go great for some kids and some parents who are like, oh yeah. The fun SLP is here. But you’re also going to have other people who are like, what? We’re paying money for this. What is this? Are we getting to the goal? So like, what would you say to people who are coming from that kind of more regimented goal belief?
LB:
I definitely understand what you mean. I think what’s been really beneficial is I always encourage parents to be close by, or to sit in on my sessions. I have no issues with that. And what’s great is that I will show parents the difference. So, here, if we sit in a chair and I do drill based therapy, I’ll show you my data. How many spontaneous phrases did I get when we were sitting in a chair? Versus now, let’s go to the playground and let’s see how much spontaneous language I get on the playground. And I’ll just show parents the difference or invite them to be a part of the process, because, what I’ve had, especially this particular family that I’ve been working with about two weeks ago, after my session we were working upstairs in the house. He didn’t want to go outside that day and we were playing with his train set and we were talking about putting the train tracks together and giving them all the vocabulary that goes with the trains, because that’s what he cares about, right? So, instead of saying this and that and just pointing to things and getting upset when he can’t name things, I’m just really doing a vocabulary rich session.
And we came downstairs and the mom and dad said to me, we didn’t even know what kid was up there. There was so much language. He was talking so much. And they’re like, when he’s with us, he’s so quiet. He doesn’t say anything and he’s so quiet all the time. And they said, we haven’t heard our child ever talk that much before and I thought, [excited] yes, I’m doing my job, that’s exactly what we want. I love my job.
Yeah, so that’s what was really awesome, because, I think when parents witness that, right? When they get to actually hear their child’s speaking, that, that is your child’s voice. That’s really telling. So for parents who really like that kind of cut and dry, just show them your data. Data speaks for itself. I tell my students all the time – they probably get so sick of hearing me say this – but I always say, if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen. That’s like our big phrase here. I make them repeat this all the time, so this is why data collection is important. Like, you can’t just say I’m going to keep it up here in my head and oh, it was approximately 20 used phrases. Like, I’m keeping track.
You know, it takes a lot of effort. You have to remember while the child’s playing like, okay, how many times did they ask me to do this? But it’s really telling when you say like, okay, when we’re sitting, I got like five phrases, but when we’re on the playground, I got 30. I just show parents data for the parents who like that, right? And then other parents are like, no, I can just hear the difference.
LS:
Which is phenomenal. Many people who are listening to this podcast now have children in their lives that are Deaf or HOH and I wonder if you’ve had any experience with this population or any advice for parents about increasing day to day language opportunities?
LB:
Sure, so I have quite a bit of experience with the Deaf and HoH world. It started when I was born. There are pictures of me when I was born being held and signed to, from birth. So I grew up in a bilingual home. I don’t remember learning sign language at all. There is no recollection of learning the language, which I think is super awesome. It’s come in handy quite a bit as a speech language pathologist, knowing sign language. So, it’s been really great knowing sign language and being able to use it in my field.
So my mother was an interpreter. She learned sign language when she was very young, about, I think maybe 15 or 16. And it was very important to her that all of us knew sign language, as well. I’m one of five children and all five of us knew it. It turned out to be super fortunate because my father lost his hearing when he was in his, I think, early 40s. He lost all of his hearing in his left ear and then lost 70% of his hearing in his right ear. So if my dad takes his hearing aids out, he can’t really hear anything. So, my family dynamic is there’s always sign language going on. So my dad, if you’re looking at him and he can see your face, you can just talk to him, but if he’s across the room, forget it, you have to use sign language. So everybody in the family signs, and so, I was introduced to that culture and that lifestyle from a very young age and my mom was very heavily involved.
So as a child, we were involved with churches. We were involved with the Deaf community and just really inundated in that for sure. So it was quite natural when I started working in school systems where every school system, you’re going to have a kid, right, who has some sort of a hearing loss. Whether that be just a kid who has a hearing aid, a kid who has an FM system. So, I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve worked with this and had this experience. So, I’ve had some kids who just needed hearing aids to help and then I’ve had to wear an FM system and had to have the teacher wear an FM system.
I personally am a big fan of total communication. So I think that comes from being a speech language pathologist, but then also growing up with that kind of mentality of having access to everything. So to me, I get a little sad, I guess, when I hear that kids don’t have access to all forms of communication, whether that’s written communications, spoken communication, or learning sign language or even if you’re just using family signs, just anything basic. I’m not saying you have to be ASL fluent, but even kids with cochlear implants – so, if you go to the beach, that cochlear implant has to come out. So, for safety purposes, that kid can’t get in the ocean, obviously, with that, with it on. So, they have to take it off and if they have no hearing whatsoever and they have no way of communicating with that off, we’ve taken away that child’s voice. So I’m a big fan. And I understand that everybody’s family dynamic is different and everybody has a different approach to this and I’m not a mom, so, I’ve never had to make that decision. So take it for what it is, right? But, I think giving a child the opportunity at all times is vital. So, learning some sort of sign language, encouraging that child to learn sign language, encouraging your family to learn something, right?
But I think if spoken language is really important to the family as well, I think encouraging the child to use their voice as much as possible, and also simultaneously being understanding that there’s certain things they won’t be able to say, and there’s certain things that they’re just not going to be able to do. So depending on the type of hearing loss, right, if you’ve lost your high frequency, zero low frequencies, kind of depending on how profound the hearing loss is. I think there’s a lot of factors to take into consideration by constantly labeling and constantly talking just the same way that we would do with any other child.
We’re constantly talking to children. We’re constantly having them look at us and attend. You just have to do it a little differently when a child has hearing loss, right? So it’s just saying like, you have to look at me when I’m talking to you. So, being very cognizant of not talking with your back turned, or not talking in a really noisy environment. It is a bit of a lifestyle change. And I think that must be very difficult for parents and I don’t take that part of my job lightly when we talk to parents about even just giving the initial diagnosis of a language disorder, so I’m essentially changing your life expectations for your child, right?
So you had this goal for your child and you had these dreams and expectations for your child and now I’m going to step in and I’m going to tell you that we’re going to throw a monkey wrench in that system. So, parents do need to go through the grieving cycle, sometimes, whether that’s hey, it’s a mild language disorder, but it’s still something they’re going to have to work with the rest of their lives so your child has a mild hearing loss. But it’s still changing the way that you teach your child. It’s still changing, it’s adjusting your thoughts and what you thought your kid was going to be. Your kid is not less. Your kid is just different, right? It’s just, they have a different approach to learning.
LS:
Sometimes I feel like I’m not the host of the show and I’m just gonna be like yes, go on, I’m listening. I have a lot of questions but I’m also learning so much. I’m so happy to connect with you, like everyone who just wants to do what you do, like get a podcast and start talking to interesting people. I feel so honored and lucky like, I didn’t even know that about your whole history, your relationship to the Deaf community and to sign language, and kind of language input being the goal at all times whatever kind of language it is, I resonate with that as a perspective.
I think you’re absolutely right about things you just said. Specifically, I think a lot of parents are seeing professionals who are saying to them don’t you dare sign. That will impede their language. Or even the other side, they’re getting messages from other people saying if you give your child hearing aids then that’s not who they are. You need to embrace their differences. So, like, a lot of times people are stuck in between these two extreme different sides of this perspective and I think taking the idea that language is language, input is input, in all the different ways we just want to feed their brain as much as possible.
LB:
Yeah, so it’s interesting that you say that because I think circumstances play such a huge factor into that as well. Right, so this whole concept of cochlear is quite a debate in the Deaf community, especially those who identify as capital D Deaf, being deaf is not a disability and I’m proud of this and it’s who I am as a person, right? So, I’ve even watched documentaries on young deaf children who decide later in life to go get a cochlear implant and how sometimes depending on the circumstances, it actually can isolate them from parts of their community.
So, this has always been a debate for years and years and had you asked me, 15 years ago, if you had a deaf child, would you implant them? I would have said, absolutely not, no way. I would not implant my child. My family knows sign language and everybody I know knows sign language and I live near people who are deaf and they’ll have this really rich community and no way would I implant my child.
Flash forward now, in my mid 30s, and if you asked me if I had a deaf child, would I give them a cochlear implant? And now I live on the opposite side of the country from my family, I know no one who is deaf, I know one other person who’s fluent in sign language. My circumstances have changed and therefore my feelings toward this have changed, because I’m not in a situation where my child would have a community. They wouldn’t have the opportunities that they would have had in that circumstance. So, I would say now, if I did have a deaf child, I think I would be a lot more inclined to implant and to implant early.
Right, because now knowing what I know about speech and language and how those first couple of years are so crucial. I think it really is dependent, so families have to make a decision for themselves. What’s going to work for you? Like I said, the only thing I’m not a fan of is when you limit the child in some way. So people who say, like, no you can’t sign, or no, you can’t use spoken language. I think that’s where my heart hurts a little. Because as a speech language pathologist, it’s like, you’re somehow taking that child’s voice away.
I don’t have a hearing loss. I’m going to assume you don’t have a hearing loss. I don’t know.
LS:
I mean not yet like my family. You know, all the older people in my family, hearing loss and also I have a very high, high, high, super high frequency hearing loss in one ear. Very sensitive to sound so I’m, like, on the verge.
LS:
Yeah, and I think those of us who are not HoH – because we look at it from this perspective every day of our lives and obviously this is a podcast so you can’t see what we’re doing – but I think if you described everything I was doing with my hands and my body the whole time. Maybe it’s because I do know sign language so it’s just natural that I talk with my hands a lot, but, think about if you’re at the beach – you can tell I live in Southern California, I talk about being at the beach a lot. [both laugh]
Right, so you’re at the beach and you want to get someone’s attention, you’re waving at them and you’re pointing to things and we almost use a reduced form of sign language on a daily basis. Right, we use that look over here look. We use the call, I’ll describe it on the podcast. So we used to use a call with our pinkie and our thumb rate with our three fingers in the middle bent down, put our fingers to ears. Children now, when you talk about making a phone call, if you ask a child to pretend phone call, they will give you a flat palm and put their palm to their cheek as a phone call now.
LS:
Outdated Emojis.
LB:
Yes, when children play, they’re like, oh, I’m going to call mommy and they’ll call mommy with a flat palm and if you sit, pretend like you’re gonna call mommy with your pinky and your thumb up, kids look at you like what are you doing? Right? So I, So, I work in early intervention. The clinic I work in is early intervention and so this is how our kids pretend call. Sorry, that was a side note.
LS:
Side notes are the main notes. But, I remember going on a trip sometime and the teacher said roll down your window, and like made a rolling motion. And I thought that was hilarious. Now I got the whole explanation. I’m rolling.
LB:
Also that. My car that I currently own is a 2017 and it does have roll down windows. I had a child in my car one time who had no idea what to do. I had to walk them step by step, how to roll down the window. It was phenomenal.
So, I mean, I think, you know, when you look at a kid who’s fully hearing, no language disorder, just your average kid, we are using some sign language with them at all times. We’re also using written language we’re also using visual language, we’re also using spoken language and we’re using gestures and signs so if we’re giving these kids total communication. Our deaf and HoH kids, why are they being limited? Of all the kids, why should we be taking away opportunities for them? But again at the end of the day it’s a family decision as a family, and your family unit and what works for you. What’s important to you.
I think that’s what we have to do but I always encourage people constantly label in your environment constantly find places where you can be talking to that child, whether that’s bath time, diaper changing, potty training, being on the playground, just talking while you’re in the car and ‘look there’s a big green tree and there’s the blue bird and there’s the park next to the house and there’s this store that we go into’ and just giving them all of this rich language constantly. And then I think my biggest plug that I give to my students and then to parents all the time is just reading to your children. Reading is so important.
Even if you’re reading the same book, you’re still exposing your children to really rich vocabulary, so vocabulary that doesn’t exist, necessarily, in everyday life. So, I think a good example is the book Where the Wild Things Are. I love this book. It’s so great and it’s so fun and it’s got all these really great vocabulary words that you don’t say in real life. Oh, and also the book, Where’s My Monster? These are like my favorite two children’s stories. [both laugh]
LS:
If you do like, The Monster at the End of this Book, with Grover. You know that one?
LB:
Oh yeah!
LS:
Oh, love that one. Grover’s hilarious. You’re saying the vocabulary words that are unique to Wild Things.
LB:
Yeah, so Where the Wild Things Are. Like roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and showed their terrible claws and rolled their terrible eyes. And they use the word suffer and they talk about a wolf, and they talk about marching and dancing and howling at the moon and all this vocabulary and this beautiful story about Max. And it’s very imaginative. You know, because Max is a little troublemaker and he gets into trouble and he gets sent to his room without supper, and he imagines right this forest grows in his bedroom, and then a private boat comes tumbling by. [laughs]
So, I have the book memorized. And so, Max steps into the boat and he sails away right? And so it’s just this really beautiful imaginative story about going to where the wild things are and Max becomes the king of the wild things, but then Max is lonely, right? Because he wants to be where someone loves him best of all. And so he smells his dinner and so he says I’m going to give up being king of the wild things and I’m going home right and he gets on his boat and he sails back home. And then when he gets home his supper is there.
You’re reading and you’re imagining. It’s just this beautiful world that Max creates where okay, when I’m in trouble, when I’ve been bad, I need to go where the wild things are because I’m being a wild thing, but then coming back to the place where you’re loved most of all.
LS:
That is so beautiful. And so many opportunities out there: on your place in the family, and how you’ll always be accepted, but also there’s consequences to things.
LB:
Yeah. [laughs]
LS:
Talking about like, high level, educational teaching of how things go but in a really fun and beautiful way, also incorporating all this amazing vocabulary. I agree. Excellent. And the other thing that I love to tell people also is that reading is not about reading. It’s about 1000 other skills. So even babies, you give them a word book, and they’re turning pages. That is pre-literacy skills and that is helping them already know that pictures and words and stories are on the pages that you can turn.
LB:
Absolutely.
LS:
And I actually was involved in this study when I was an undergrad, that was looking at bilinguals. And in Hebrew, books are written from right to left.
LB:
Yep.
LS:
One of the parts of the study was giving children the exact same book. It was Goodnight Moon and we had a Hebrew copy and an English copy, – like, a translation, with the same pictures – and put them down and wanted to see what they prefer. But also, afterwards, do they know to open that one correctly and the English one correctly? So even in that bilingual home, if you have books in different languages, the identification that this is a book in this language versus another one is already another huge next level thinking of language processing.
But we were talking about sign language. I know this, as in many other languages and cultures, are you aware of any differences in sarcasm or all the other things, cultural side of language that’s different in sign language? Because, I know there’s kind of a stereotype, if you will, that deaf people and sign users are a lot more blunt, a lot more straightforward, because that’s just the nature of how you’re communicating.
LB:
So definitely growing up, I experienced that a lot that the Deaf community is quite blunt. It, it’s just cultural, right? Also, my family has some parts of it that are kind of like that, as well, so I don’t know if it was the influence from the Deaf community or what it is, but I think that is something that I haven’t looked a ton into. I do know that the humor is quite different. So, a joke in sign language is typically not very funny to a hearing person.
This is nearly impossible to describe on a podcast, but essentially there was like this joke when I was a kid that was huge, like a massively hilarious joke that was going around the whole Deaf community and essentially, you would sign, do the sign for tree and then you would make this motion, as if you’re moving your palm down to your other arm, and you would sign t i m b e r. So you’re signing, timber, Right. deaf people thought this was hilarious like dying of laughter, tears rolling down their eyes and all the hearing people who would see this joke would just be like, I mean I get it, but it’s not funny.
So I think if a researcher is listening to this podcast and you research deaf and HoH versus, kind of, spoken language, it wouldn’t be worth exploring. So anybody who does, maybe, fMRIs? Like, that would be really fun, right? What is happening in your brain when you’re hearing a joke, like, spoken language joke versus what’s happening in the brain when you’re looking at, kind of, the visual representation of the joke?
LS:
I’ll tell you what’s happening in my brain. I’m wondering as a hearing person, what is the setup to the joke and what, kind of, as you make that joke, whereas visually on its own, that is the joke.
LB:
It’s interesting. I actually did try briefly to study humor in comedians. So, kind of like why comedians use sarcasm. Unfortunately, it kind of got put on hold. Maybe this is something I should revisit, like going back to comedy and interviewing comedians. But I did talk to a lot of comedians about why they used sarcasm or why they didn’t use sarcasm and kind of, like, what is your motivation behind using it or not using it and how much do you think it influences? And then I recorded bits of their sets and I was actually like, oh, look. Actually, you’re using more sarcasm than you think you are. Pointing it out to them.
But anyway, it’s definitely something fascinating to look into. I think the big part of sarcasm is the voice. That’s a massive part. Because you can say I love your shirt, or I love your shirt, or [mockingly] I love your shirt and I just give you three completely different messages, just by changing my voice. But it’s fascinating to look into. So, I have not looked at sarcasm within the Deaf and HoH community, but I think it’s worth the exploration.
LS:
And also, I just want to give a shout out also to our listeners that have some sort of auditory processing disorder in their life, because the little nuances and inflammation and timing and stress are also many times difficult for kids with ADD. So yeah, this conversation is so much fun. And then we could go on, but I’m really glad to meet you and learn about your work and thank you so much for sharing all of your journey, your expertise, ideas, preparing. So, last words from Dr. Leah.
LB:
Well, thank you so much for having me. This is such an honor. I love collaborating, I think, as a takeaway, I think the last thing I would say is just do your very best to try to collaborate with as many people as possible and if you’re an audiologist listening, or a speech language pathologist listening, really, collaboration is so vital to our clients, regardless of their age, because if we don’t work together and we don’t have a common goal, we’re not helping the client. We’re not helping that child the best that we can so, when we come as a united front as parents and therapists and audiologists, you know, everybody working together, this is the best approach to talk about total communication. There’s your, there’s your total communication, right? So, that’s my biggest takeaway is really working together as a team, and understanding that our common goal is to help the child find their voice.
LS:
And if people would like to find you or reach out or learn about your work, where can they find you?
LB:
You can find me in a few places, I think probably the best way to find me is through email, so just my last name Beekman, beekman@chapman.edu, so like Chapman University. So that’s probably the best way to find me.
LS:
Are you on social at all?
LB:
My Instagram account is Vagus, as in the vagus nerve, your cranial nerve. [both laugh] The vagus nerve is my favorite nerve, so it’s Vagus so, v a g u s and then the number 8 6. 86. So, yes, the vagus nerve is really vital for speech and language. And then, I mean if you really want, I do have a YouTube channel where I post up things for parents. I post up therapy ideas and I read children’s books. So, that is, Unless Therapy, so, u n l e s s therapy. So, Unless Therapy is my private practice, which comes from the quotes, unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better. It’s not. So Unless Therapy on youtube. I put up children’s stories. I put up therapy ideas. I periodically will throw up a yoga thing like hey, let’s all de-stress together.
LS:
Awesome.
Thank you to the listeners of the All About Audiology Podcast. If you want to learn more, or hear about all the other topics covered, go to All About Audiology, then search for your keywords in the search bar and we’ve covered so many topics from different angles with incredible guests. And thank you for supporting the show. You can do so at patreon.com/allaboutaudiology, find me on Instagram where I hang out all the time, and join our Facebook group for more conversation. Thank you so much for listening. I’m Dr. Lilach Saperstein and this the All About Audiology Podcast.
Pingback: All About a Career as an SLP with Meera Deters- Episode 81 - All About Audiology