The Language of Play: Dinalynn Rosenbush on Speech, Sign Language, and Waiting Lists

Summary
Dinalynn Rosenbush, a 30-year speech-language pathologist and creator of the top 1.5% podcast The Language of Play, joins Dr. Inyang Takon to reframe how parents think about speech and language delay. They cover the misconception that only a speech pathologist can move the needle (parents' time and connection matter just as much), why signing supports rather than delays speech, why "play" is not a break from language-building but the mechanism of it, and practical, low-cost strategies parents can use the moment they notice a concern — rather than waiting for an assessment.

Key Takeaways for Parents and Teachers:

• Don't wait for a diagnosis or a waiting-list appointment to start supporting a child's language — early, everyday interaction matters more than parents often realise.
• Signing does not delay speech — it gives children access to language through larger muscle groups before fine motor speech control develops, and children naturally transition to spoken words as they become easier.
• Parents have something a therapist can't replicate: frequency, time, and connection — pairing that with the right strategies can accelerate progress significantly.
• "Play" isn't just toys — sensory exploration (like mashed potatoes at dinner) is also play, and redirecting rather than shutting it down protects the learning opportunity.
• If you're on a waiting list, don't just wait — small, consistent daily strategies can start making a difference immediately.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Language of Play podcast
• Small Steps in Speech (Amanda Barati) — speech therapy scholarship program

Connect with Dinalynn Rosenbush:
Website: https://www.thelanguageofplay.com/
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-language-of-play-kids-that-listen-speech/id1661880535
Freebie — 5 Ways to Get Kids to Listen Better: https://www.thelanguageofplay.com/5-ways-to-get-kids-to-listen-better
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinalynn-rosenbush-b5750854/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557381098806
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dinalynnrosenbush/

Connect with Dr. Inyang Takon:
Website: https://www.drtakon.com
General Information for Parents: https://www.school-doctor.com
Questions? Email: eim@drtakon.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inyang-takon-paediatrician-co-founder-school-doctor-25a0b551/
Subscribe: https://neuropaeddoc.substack.com/
Read: https://braindiverse.substack.com/
Guest enquiries: podcast@drtakon.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Early Intervention Matters, a podcast that helps parents, teachers, and health professionals understand the diagnosis, treatment, care, and support of children with autism, ADHD, threats, and other neurodevelopmental challenges. Your host, Dr. Yang Yang Taco, is a consultant and neurodevelopment pediatrician, and she will provide insights through interviews, answering questions, and breaking down complicated topics. By sharing stories from parents and professionals in the field, we hope to make sense of what can be an overwhelming topic. Early intervention is crucial for children with developmental difficulties. Yes. Early intervention matters. And now, here's your host, Dr. Inyan Tagon.

SPEAKER_05 0:56

Your toddler isn't talking yet, and everyone keeps saying he'll grow out of it. But what if waiting is the one thing you can't afford to do? Today I'm joined by speech and language pathologist Dinalin Rosenbush. She's a creator of the language of play. She's going to talk to us about the red flags parents miss, why play is doing more for your child's language than any flashcard ever will, and exactly what to do while you're stuck on a waiting list. This is Early Intervention Podcast, is a platform where we break down complex neuroscience and neurodevelopmental conditions into language and actionable steps that parents and all the people involved in a child's life can take. Really pleased today to welcome Dina Lane. I'm so happy to have you here. Dinalane, thank you for accepting to join us on this episode. And you're doing great work. I've seen all the things that you do. And I hope our audience will also enjoy listening to you and get lots from you. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Well, thank you so much for having me. And it is quite an honor to be on Early Intervention Podcast. I love the work you're putting into the world, and it is so important. So thank you for the invitation. It is an honor.

SPEAKER_05 2:11

Thank you. Thank you. So, Dunaline, we're so pleased to have you join us. And um, I think you'll do more justice to introducing yourself to our audience than I can with all the great work you had been doing. So please, could you tell us about yourself and tell the audience um about your work and where you are based and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Thank you. I would be happy to. So, yes, my name is Dina Lynn Rosenbush, and I am a speech language pathologist. I have been doing this work for over three decades, helping kiddos in the public school system, private school, and homeschool. And after that, I had a health crisis and I I resigned that position. And then I started thinking, what do I want to do? And how can I serve families the way I love, but nix some of that paperwork, which is what I didn't love. So on that, I decided to make a podcast. And that podcast is focused on parents. And the interesting thing is that when I focus on parents, part of it is that we want to take some of the jargon out, right? You want to say it in ways that make sense and and take out the excess jargon and then also do one small strategy at a time because we can all do one small step. But I know that for me, if I'm given five things to do, I do nothing. But if I'm given one thing to do, I can do that thing and I can learn to do it well. Wait a week, give me one other small thing. And that was the goal, that was the mission to be able to serve parents so that they could do the things kind of like what I do in the classroom, but of course, in small steps, because I really believe, you know, parents don't need to know everything there is in speech pathology. But if we can give them what they need for their child and they will know what they need for their child when they hear it, then they can implement those small steps. So that's how the podcast came about. And then from there I started coaching parents and and now I've got a group program for parents as well.

SPEAKER_05 4:04

Fantastic. Well done. That sounds great. Could you um could you want to explain to our audience? Because some of them are um wondering speech and language pathologies, what does that involve? Because in the United Kingdom, they're all used to speech and language therapy. So is there a difference? And um, what's that difference? Because we refer that to them as speech and we call them salt, actually, speech and language therapies. So you'd hear people saying the salt and the salt.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Sure. That's kind of fun. I like I like that phrase, salt. We don't use that here. I am based in Minnesota, so I'm in the United States, and here where I live, and across the United States, you might be called a speech language pathologist, a speech language therapist, a speech language clinician. And then when you go to the schools, they lovingly just say, speech teacher. So there's a lot of titles that mean the same thing. Interestingly, in Canada, it is leveled. So you have speech language pathologist, and below the pathologist is the therapist. So then I was told, oh, you need to say your actual title. So the title that is on my license is speech language pathologist. So I'm always changing it to be that simply because it's on my title on my license. Um, here in the United States, your leveling, so to speak, would be an SLP A, and that A is assistant. So speech language pathologist assistant is the SLP A. And in the US, that is our leveling. So I don't know in the United Kingdom if the therapist is exactly the same as the pathologist, I would assume so, because it is here. But if you have levels of leadership, I'm not aware of what's in the UK. But if I had known you were going to ask the question, I would have looked up the answer.

SPEAKER_05 5:49

So we we have um levels. We have highly specialist speech and language therapies, principal speech and language therapies. And sometimes it depends on what area they are focused on. So for example, in pediatrics, we have the specialist speech and language therapists who are involved in the feeding service, and and they do the work related to the feeding and swallowing bits of the speech, speech and communication. Then we have those who are involved in the specialist assessments for autism spectrum disorder. So it's quite variable, and they they have different levels and titles that they have. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

That makes total sense. And here we just have if you're working that department, then we say, Oh, I'm a speech language pathologist, but I'm doing swallowing therapy.

SPEAKER_05 6:35

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:37

It well, I guess the it's the broad feature is the same. It's just the language that's you know, you're doing the same role. It's just language that's different. Great. And so what drew you to um that field of work? What what was the attraction?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

That's kind of funny. I actually was going to school in the UK. I was going to school in the University of Birmingham. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 7:01

I did my master's there. So did you?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Excellent. Excellent. Um, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was just, I was a study abroad student before study abroad was popular. And I was just exploring and I took this class from a teacher, and I thought, that's interesting. I'll take another one from her. And then pretty soon I took a bunch from her. And then she calls me into her office and she says, you know, you've never declared a major. How about you declare this as a major? And so I did. And I just kept on taking the classes. I didn't know what speech pathology was. I just knew that I found the work interesting. I found the study interesting. And so I just kept on doing it until I nearly had the degree done. And then, of course, you know, you go on from there. So, but that's actually how I got into it. It very unusual, I know. But that was it. I just found it interesting. And the other thing that was really funny at that time is that I had a roommate and we were like, we both had the accounting class and we both had these other classes. And what she got easily, I did not. I could not, for the life of me, figure out the accounting stuff. And she could not figure out this class stuff. And we couldn't figure out why the other person didn't understand because it was so straightforward. You know, we all have our different strengths.

SPEAKER_05 8:12

Yeah. Well, that's what makes it fun. And you know, that journal interesting, isn't it? And you almost wish that these days people are not just made to go down one strict route. You know, people are allowed to find what interests them. So that's really lovely. Great. So, what are the common misconceptions? So I can say that when I see children with speech and language delay, parents sometimes feel that they need more and more and more speech therapy, they need more one-to-one therapy, and that more one-to-one direct therapy is going to lead to an improvement in the language. So, you know, so parents have different um approaches and understanding to speech and language therapy. So, are there any common misconceptions that you feel parents have about what a speech and language pathologists actually do?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yes. There's many. And the first thing that I think of is the idea that now the speech language pathologists, when involved, they are going to make a change. Absolutely, hands down, it it works. But the misconception that I think parents have is that they need the speech pathologist in order to make it work. If moms and dads also understand the their child's disability, they understand how they can build language, then you as moms and dads can make a huge, huge impact along the way. Yes, the speech pathologist makes a difference. I'm I'm not discounting that, but the misconception is that parents think that they're not making the difference. And the power that a mom and dad have is really more than we have as speech pathologists. We have the power of knowing how the brain works so we can strategically teach. Yeah. But parents have the frequency of interaction. They have time, they know the child. And if you can put together the strategies from the speech pathologist and the time, the frequency, the interaction, the love, the connectedness with mom and dad, then you can exponentially make improvement in that child's speech and language development. It can happen a whole lot faster and a whole lot better, deeper. Because there's more practice along the way. That's probably one of the first misconceptions I think that parents have with regards to us. The second one would be I can't do anything. I need to wait for them to get involved and they can do it for me. And that's certainly not true because moms and dads make a huge difference.

SPEAKER_05 10:46

That's certainly one that I hear very often in my clinic, people saying, Oh, we've not been able to do anything. We're waiting for this speech and language therapy.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Right. And that is one of the very reasons I started my podcast because I don't want moms and dads to wait. And I can't tell you the number of kiddos that have come to me. And I think you're six. If mom and dad knew what to do when you were three, you wouldn't have ever been here. And you would have had three years that wouldn't have been so stressful. You would have had three less years of mom and dad worrying. So that just kind of breaks my heart. And that's what really was the reason to do this, because a lot of things, not all, certainly there are more major disabilities where they really need that support and help. But oftentimes there are really simple strategies that we can implement if they're known, but they're not necessarily known because it's a brain science thing in a deep well of speech pathology, but it's still easy, but it's just not realized.

SPEAKER_05 11:41

I completely agree with you. And I think it's a similar reason that I started taking information out there because I felt there are things that parents can do. People can understand if you break that information to them in the way that they can understand. Peel off all the jargon and just break it down in the way that they can understand, and then they would be able to relate it to their environment. So thank you for for doing the saying that and making it so clear. So I'm sure our audience are listening that they don't need to wait. There are things they can start doing.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

And and I love when parents come to me early on, like before there's any concerns. So they start listening to a podcast like mine when their child is is four, five, six months old, and they start thinking in terms of when my child is little, I bet we can think about signs to support language development. And I think when my child is little, what role do I have in placing vocabulary in their ears? You know, should I be talking to them? How much should I talk? Should I use baby talk? Should I just talk normally? What's the benefit of talking? And I think that when parents understand, even for the littlest of our little ones, that when we play with our language, play with our sounds, our rhythms, you are implanting pathways in their brain, even when they're not understanding, they're still hearing rhythm, they're hearing patterns, and they're starting to develop understanding long before we start to see the evidence of what they understand, which of course is the word they come out with, or them leading us to something they want. All of that happens long after their understanding started to begin. So I love when parents listen early, ask questions early.

SPEAKER_05 13:29

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for emphasizing that it starts long before you even start noticing any difference, and that the earlier you start introducing this, those things, the better. What you said about signs, I remember um the family the they say, Oh, why are you signing to him? If you don't sign, if you sign to him, he's not going to talk.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

That is a great thing to bring up. Absolutely great to bring up. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that misconception, too. It makes sense that somebody would think it, but the reality is that this is a fine motor. Our fingers are fine motor, but they're still grosser motor than our tongue. So for our children, they're going to get control over the larger muscles before the little muscles. So when you can give them access to language, because they've got it in their brain, but you give them access through their muscles that are bigger, they're able to come up with words with their hands and they're gesturing or signing, both typically, and it's not accurate, but it's close enough for you to start catching on. And then they start, they will always use what is easier. And pretty soon saying the word is going to be easier because that sign only expresses so much and they only have maybe, maybe 10 signs that you give them, right? And so then pretty soon their need to express something broader causes them to find the easier street is actually language. And then what you see along the way is the combination of some sign plus some gesture plus some word. And you have a three-word sentence if you're going to give credit for a sign plus a gesture plus a word spoken. And that is truly how they're still building whole sentences even early. Mm-hmm. But again, why would you know that unless you learn it, right?

SPEAKER_05 15:26

Yeah, yeah. And that's a a really good point you've raised. And I like the way that you have shown how it develops because every single part is doing something and it's contributing to that whole language development. So again, it's just to reassure people that the fact that your child is signing doesn't mean they're not going to talk, like you're saying. They're using those muscles to help to aid communication as well. And that part is going to come.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

If mamas and dads could get a visual for what sign does for language, I would say it is the vehicle. It provides access. It's like the runway into speech. And so then you open the runway earlier.

SPEAKER_05 16:05

Great. I like that phrase. You open the runway earlier. I like that. Really? So we hear speech and language, and sometimes people say his pitch and then his language. So sometimes it's mixed up. Is there a distinction? How can you separate that? How can you explain the difference to parents?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

That is such a great question because this also is, I wouldn't I don't really want to call it a misconception. It's more like something that just has never really been thought about, and people have their own idea. Speech, when when we are talking about it as speech language pathologists, when I am talking about speech, I specifically think about speech sounds that create a word. So in English, we have 44 sounds. 26 letters, but we have 44 sounds. Right? And those sounds go together to form words. And it is how the tongue moves in the mouth, how we breathe, when we turn on our voice, our lungs. That's what I think of exclusively when I hear the word speech. When I hear the word language, I think about now we've got a concept with those words, and then we string those words together and we build sentences. And there's a way we do it socially, and there was a way we're not doing it correctly socially. There is a way that we add describing words in there. We need to include articles like uh and the. We use past tense, present tense, future tense. We build narrative to explain what's going on. We bring in information, that would be receptive language. We bring all that information into us, and expressive would be we'd be putting out all that language to express our thoughts and feelings. So that is language. So there's speech, which is your sounds, which are your building blocks, and then there's language, which is that comprehension and expression in a whole and how it works socially. That's how I divide it in my mind.

SPEAKER_05 17:55

That's very clear. And it I think it would help um because then it's sometimes parent to say, oh, his speech hasn't developed, or it's what they're trying to refer to as language, you might be emphasizing it as speech.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

So I think it's important that families have the clarity in their minds, you know, the speech sounds and this is one of the reasons that the terminology speech therapist gets so confusing for parents. Because if a child is not having speech sound difficulty, but they are having language development difficulty, who do they go up to? The speech therapist. I think this is why the whole title is speech, language pathology, you know, because it's it's the whole of it. But yet, I think maybe we just shorten it up when we say speech therapist.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

But language is its own area, and language is really what binds your heart to mine, isn't it? Because it's conceptually, I understand you, you understand me. So it goes deeper. It's what allows that connection between two people.

SPEAKER_05 18:57

And it's so it's such an important um scale, just aiding everything, anything we can do to aid the development of that language is so important because it's freeing. It's like the child is liberated, it's they've got a way of connecting with people, and that's the link between when the child's language is not developing, then we get all the fallouts that we see. I then get see children coming to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, exactly. And I in my field, I think of that as communication frustration. Yeah. The child has something in them, they understand what they want, they don't have the words. So if they can't speak the words yet, give them a sign, give them gestures, give them everything they can to access what they actually understand so that they can express it to you. And then when they get all this frustration, then step back and and really look at they're not trying to make life difficult for you. They're having a hard time. Their life is difficult at the moment. So how can we understand what they want? And if and if we demand that they use it through speech only and they don't have the capability, then we've got struggle. And at that point, we can add in pictures, we can add in a book. Like I can't tell you how many times in in my therapy rooms I've had books out on the table and and the child is trying to tell me something about they went to the zoo this weekend and they want to tell me about the shark. In my mind, okay, mom sent me a message, they went to the zoo, and I'm thinking, elephant, giraffe, you know, like I'm thinking about the mammals. And the child is getting frustrated because he wants to tell me. And what he's doing is maybe he's taking his hands and and slapping his hands together, and I'm not catching on. And then he goes to a book and he grabs a book and he shows me the picture. Now we can talk about sharks. And then those are the sounds we're gonna work on, those are the words we're gonna work on. Now he's interested, he's ready because this is his topic at this time.

SPEAKER_05 20:55

Well, it just reminds me of if we go to a different country and we cannot speak the language, and you want to communicate with somebody in the shops or something, you look for everything you can to try and aid that communication. It's happened to me many times. It's like, okay, you know, I need to find something to actually let them understand what I'm trying to say. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

And as adults, we can do that, and our children can do that only to the degree that they've had exposure to other things.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So very much interested in your approach, the language of play.

SPEAKER_05 21:36

Do you want to talk to us about it? Tell us a bit more about the language of play, how because that's the name of the program. And um I think uh when I saw that, I found it really fascinating that that's what drew me to your work. And I thought, this sounds interesting, the language of play, and you know, and that really um was what made me connect with you. So yeah, it would be good to hear about. The whole approach.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

I'm glad you asked me that because I love that name. I too. And when people come to me, sometimes they're asking, so do you talk about play or do you talk about language? What do you do? And and what I like to say is that it's parents. It's really about parents. And the reason is because when I'm teaching parents and I think of play, I think of play more like a mindset. And we think of how does a child's brain learn? And that, and if we can get ourselves into mindset. So let me do a little activity with you here for a moment. Okay. So shut your eyes for just a second and feel how you your body feels when I say these words. I say creativity, discovery, exploration. So you're discovering, you're you're playing, you're open to experimentation. And when you're open to these things, how your body feels is suddenly relaxed, right? How did you feel?

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

And that's all I thought. Yeah. Yeah. And open to the possibility. But was there a judgment within you of that's right or wrong? I'm gonna make a mistake. You know, there's nothing present that way. Because when we when we think in terms of discovery, exploration, play, creativity, open curiosity, it's this feeling of expansiveness that comes into it. Right. Okay, so now I want you to think from parents' perspective. When we get our brain in that space, now we are in the place where our child's brain naturally operates. That's where they are, that's where they live. They live in this space of play. Their brain is just simply that way by nature. So if we can then change our language, remembering that that's where their brain is at, we're gonna talk to them differently. We're going to allow mistakes, we're going to give them signs, we're going to give them words, we're going to usher them into another experiment. We're going to ask them what might happen if. Or that's cool. That's new, isn't it? We we get into a play mindset and our language changes. And so then we use the language of play to connect their young brain to where you're trying to take them, which is to their next learning task, whether it's tying shoes or or eating more neatly or connecting words, whatever it is. But that space in our mind and how we communicate once we get into that space in our mind is where that title, The Language of Play, came from. Because the language of play opens up a heart and a mind for the next thing to learn and to do, no matter what age you are.

SPEAKER_05 24:38

That is absolutely true. That's true. And I think of the children in my who come to see me in the clinic, like you said, that's where they're living. That's the stage they're in, because they want to play and they're drawn to play. They just want to do that. No child comes to my clinic. I mean, if they come to the clinic and you tell them to sit for two minutes, they're looking for the next thing to play with. Of course. Because that's where they're drawn to. So it's it's useful to hear this, and it's very um, it's something that it would be really great for parents to remember that because sometimes, you know, the stress of wanting to get them to talk now, you know, um can overshadow that experience that they should have, that experience of actually enjoying play with their child rather than, you know, just being very focused on when they start, you know, uh saying the words.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

And and you bring up a really good idea here, and that's when parents are thinking about playing with their child, and they're thinking about play as a verb, like doing Legos, which is valuable. I'm not discounting that. And it is one meaning for the word play. And it is true, it is absolutely right that we do play. But if we stop and think about how many definitions of play there are, then we open up again our mind to remember that when my child has their fingers in their mashed potatoes and they're licking their fingers, for them, that is an exploration of texture and flavor, which is still play.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

And so then they're told don't play with your food. Really, like that's the way their brain is working. So maybe a better way to say it is let's learn how to use a fork. Let's learn how to use our spoon. You know, but but there is that very real experience of in your mind having realizing that your child's play needs to be communicated in the understanding that their brain is in that space of play so that they're not condemned for doing the fingers and the mesh potatoes, but rather we steer it the way we want to.

SPEAKER_05 26:42

You raised a very important point. And even for me as a clinician, that's very useful information for me, taking back when I'm, you know, talking to parents, you know, trying to get them to redirect their minds to understand that that's the zone they're in. Because what what happens in the clinic room is that parents are very worried, and rightly so they want the child to talk. But I think sometimes they they don't see the the other benefits of the other parts. So they might say, Oh, he's always doing this, running up and down, doing this, um, you know, playing with this and that. But from what you're saying, that can be a missed opportunity to actually, you know, engage in that part and use that part to develop language.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Exactly. Well said.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

I think for me as a clinician, reflecting on my work, that's something for me to take back as well and and use that in supporting the family.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

And this way of thinking, we have to remember this goes all the way up to age 12. Some people say longer. So when we have our little ones, we gotta remember that they don't really veer that much from that zone. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 27:48

Exactly. Well, just moving on to parents' worries. Obviously, you work with a lot of parents, and like you said, your work is focused on getting parents to that coaching because that's that's the real work. It's when you get the parents to understand, then it's half the work done. They and they stay consistent. Earlier, red flags for speech and language delay that parents sometimes miss or dismiss. Because one of the things I think for me as a clinician, I see two categories of parents. Some parents are really worried, and some parents who say, Oh no, don't worry. He's a boy, he's going to grow out of it. You know, boys speak later, they're not worried, you know. So, what would you say? And when speaking with parents, when what what would you say about when they should be worried?

SPEAKER_01 28:34

This is a really good question because I think we need to backpedal a little bit and think, I don't want parents to worry. Because when we worry, we tend to think about it so much. And then what I see happening is that parents will try something and it won't work, and they'll try something and it won't work. And then pretty soon you end up having this angst in the relationship.

unknown 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Because the the child starts feeling like I'm failing at something mommy wants me to do. Mommy's feeling like I'm failing at helping my child do what they need to do. And then you've got this angst. So I would say that if you have gotten yourself into that struggle, it is time to get somebody to support you, whether or not you meet the threshold of trouble, that the charts don't matter at that point, because what you want to do is get that relationship to be strong. So in my program, for example, we teach the skills and we teach the brain science, we teach how to practice. And if you imagine that's a triangle, and in the middle, the glue that holds everything together and nothing works unless you have it is trust in the relationship. And once we have that angst in the relationship, we have to backpedal and know that we have to get back into that space and remember they're learning and playing, and you are too, and you're going to try things and there isn't failure. There's just moving forward. And if it's not working, it means we learned what doesn't work. We're going to try something else. You know, like this gentleness that needs to be returned to both mom and dad and the child. So there's the first thing I want to say about that. The next thing I want to say to answer your question is I don't like the idea of just wait and see, because some will wait and fail, and some will wait and they'll get it. But in that waiting time, you have all this struggle. You get mad at your kid because maybe they're not listening. They're not doing what they're told. They're not saying their sounds, maybe they're not developing an whatever's going on. During that pause and wait time, you end up having more struggle that is needless. So I always advise just teach them. And if you don't know how to teach them, then you come to somebody like you or like me so that you can learn how to teach them. And nowadays, online you have a lot of people that have resources. And certainly there are a lot of podcasts that are resources too. And then sometimes you'll look at a podcast that has lots of episodes, and you're like, wow, where do I begin? And that's that's real too, you know. But and then there's information overload and you don't know who to pick from. And what I'll say about like a lot of the parents that I work with, they will go online and they'll Google speech sounds. Where should my child be? And I've done this to see what parents find. You find people put up all kinds of charts and you don't know which one to listen to, and they seem very different. Some of those charts tell you when 90% of the kids have corrected their sounds, and some tell you when 60% of the kids have corrected their sounds. And those are very different charts. And they only have percentages and and a and a label like that if they're typically if they're credible, but you've got lots of people that just make a chart and stick it up there. So so for moms and dads, I would say look at your sources and make sure that you're you understand the chart that you're reading. You know, are we talking about when 90% have corrected sounds or 60? Because if you're looking at the 60%, it sounds like everybody's in good shape. The other thing is speech sounds are actually very easy to correct when you know how. They are not hard to correct if you actually do it early. And that would be well getting right back to what we talked about at the beginning of this episode, which was if you hear your children saying baby talk, do we just allow it? If we're going how are we going to talk around them? Are we going to talk with rhythm and cadence that's normal? We're presenting them with sounds, or are we going to repeat back to them their way of producing? Or do we repeat back to them the correct sound production? So here's here's one example because we kept it in my house in my house. So we had a the name Joseph, and my daughter said Jophus. So she flipped the sounds. And we all thought it was so cute that we kept it Jophus. So every Christmas we've got Jophus. But we also made sure that she could say Joseph. We'd say it's Joseph, and she would be able to say Joseph. And then we would accept Jophus at Christmas time. Do you see how you can keep some of the sweetness? Because sometimes those what I hear parents say again is it's so cute, I don't want to correct it. And it's true. Sometimes these kids come up with the cutest sounds ever. And and sometimes we do want to keep it, but also make sure that maybe in a different context, they're able to say all the sounds. They're able to say that word. Another one my child said was your get instead of yogurt. Oh now, to this day, when that particular child is at home, if we're going to have some yorget, I go ahead and give it and she laughs and and then but we all actually call it yogurt.

SPEAKER_05 33:40

So she learns the right thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Right. They all know the correct pronunciation. They can say the pronounce correct pronunciation, and then we can still enjoy the cuteness.

SPEAKER_05 33:50

Yeah, the cuteness, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Mm-hmm. And and we'll say that's that's a cute way to say it. Here's the right way, and then we can say it the funny way. But this is so anyway, that so we make sure that they know the right pronunciations. Another thing that I see is parents accepting short sentences because they expect, oh, my child just that's normal, isn't it? Well, it's normal if you expect it. They rise to what we expect of them. So if they've got really short sentences, one or two words, and they're old enough to say more than you think they probably should say more, then we do raise the bar and we we give them those examples that are broader and longer.

SPEAKER_05 34:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:30

Just to encourage them to do.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Mm-hmm. And giving them models continuously that are that are broader and longer. But notice what your child is doing, always being noticing because what they do is going to give you an indicator of what they're missing.

SPEAKER_05 34:45

And that takes quite good observation and interaction for you to be able to get that out.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Yeah. And when when parents come to me, I'm often saying, okay, here's what I want you to notice. And I give them a specific task, like, okay, so now when they're talking to you, I want you to notice the sounds that they actually say. And then parent, and I'll say, for example, they come to me and they say, they can't say the F sound. And then, okay, their homework is, I want you to notice the other airflow sounds. This is a category of sounds. And so then we talk about the sounds that are our airflow, and then they often come back to me and say, I've never noticed. And then they go through, oh, I should have noticed I'm a bad parent. And then you gotta get done with that and get through that. And then we can move on to, okay, so now that you know, and then we start doing different airflow things. So again, it's strategically learning how to notice. And if it's sentence length, you're noticing, oh, does my child easily use verbs? Or maybe they're only using nouns.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Are they dropping out adjectives? Are they dropping out articles? You know, what is missing and what do they do?

SPEAKER_05 35:52

What is missing and what do they do? So they're putting Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

So when you start to notice what they actually do, what's missing becomes apparent. So your focus is always on, well, what do they actually do? And sometimes this takes a journal, write down on in a journal, what what are they doing? And then come back to somebody like me saying, here's what I'm noticing. And then I can help you look at, well, this is what you're missing, and here's the next easiest way to do it. Do this for a week. And I think sometimes parents don't give themselves credit for like it when they really learn to observe objectively what is missing becomes a parent and they can stick it in one small step at a time.

SPEAKER_05 36:29

I think what what you've said there is so key because I think when you think about maybe parents being busy all day and just running and doing what they need to do, they have to think about the time that they're actually spending with, you know, their child going through this speech and language journey to actually notice what they're doing and be able to interact with them. Because I think what's quite common is or what happens a lot of the time, is people are just waiting for when that milestone is going to happen.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 37:02

So they're just saying, Oh, when is he going to say his first words? When is he going to say the sentence? When is he going to but what happens in between and actually knowing how they could make, you know, m that period more productive and more engaging.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 37:18

Is sometimes people don't realize how important that journey is.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's natural to think, oh, it's just coming.

SPEAKER_05 37:27

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

But if you really get present with your kiddo, and I'm not saying that parents aren't trying hard, because they do. And I also know what you're saying is true. They're so busy. And if you've got more than one child, too, you're real busy with the kids and you're distracted and you're doing your best and you're exhausted, and you've got jobs or whatever you have. Yeah. But to get present is important.

SPEAKER_05 37:50

This this is a very interesting episode. I wish we could talk and talk and talk. But I know we've got, you know, not so much time. Say, what's the realistic pathway for a worried parent? If a parent has a child who is non-verbal and they just they want to teach the child to talk, and the child possibly can say words, but the child doesn't initiate the talking. So they don't spontaneously initiate the talk and the conversation. They're at the single word stage, but when they ask questions, they would respond, and the parent feels they need to teach them. What would be your approach in that situation? How would you address a say, for example, a much older child who has speech delay and um also has autism, spectrum disorder, but they want to help they want that the child to communicate and they know that when they ask questions the child can answer, but the child doesn't initiate that language or what would you do?

SPEAKER_01 38:49

This is so important and such a good question. So first off, we think about how the age of the child, and you said this child would be like much older. So I'm thinking this would be a child that we would normally expect sentences from and interaction from. Okay. So at that point, I think we need to still look at what is a child able to do and and start from there. So the starting point is always what the child is able to do. And then I go back to the runway that we talked about. What other ways can they build language? Maybe they've got one word now and again, or they're answering questions now and again. Can we give pictures? Can we give signs? Can we give gestures in conjunction with the words that they're able to say? And can we count their sentences as a sign plus a gesture plus a verbal word plus a picture? And we get a four-word sentence and just credit the child. You said, I want, because they grabbed something, a ball, because maybe they gave a picture to you, and maybe they showed you outside by gesturing. You want to play ball outside. Thank you for telling me that. I want to play ball outside. I understood you. I like that you said, I want to play ball outside. So now you hear that maybe that's too excuse me, too long for this child. I don't know this child. But it you see that you I I imagined that with those that combination of sign and gesture and picture and word, whatever it was, they gave you a three or four-word sentence. So I gave them back what they said three different times in three different ways, but I used a sentence. So I gave them an example of how does that language link together. I gave them full credit. I didn't say I wish you had said, or please say. I said it for them. I gave the model back and back and back, along with you did well. I'm glad you said, I understood you. So it's it's affirming that that language going back and forth is something that is good. If you're working on maybe the child is just saying one word, but they're not using pictures, maybe you're going to move from the one word to maybe three words, where you've got give them a picture and use the word they say, and you're going to create, at first ask them, do you want the cupcake? And they'll nod. You want a cupcake. I want a cupcake. I like that you said, I want a cupcake. I understand that you said I want a cupcake. And you hear how I'm pausing when I'm saying it? Yeah. I want a cupcake. So that you've got these chunking of the sentence. So the child hears the mini phrase, the mini phrase, and again, they learn you understood, you like it, and they communicate it. You're giving them that feedback that this is the right way to say it, and this is um something that pleases you, but you're not saying to them, you need to do it, you didn't do it wrong, try it again, follow me, copycat me. You're dropping that. You're just you're giving them the credit of the communication. Another thing that you can add to that, depending on the child, is augmentative systems. So an augmentative and assistive device would be maybe something, uh a board, maybe it's a an app on your iPad where there are pictures and the device can talk back. And for children that have trouble with those sentences, sentence development, I've worked with kids where where they will use the device to build a sentence and of course backpedal from there. How do you begin? They have one word and they learn where the word is on the board. Ah, I understand you want this. Okay, then you're gonna partner it with the picture that is I want with that item. And then it's and then where does it say speak? And then again, you give full credit to the child as if that was their voice. I understood you. You said you want the red car because they grabbed the red car, even though they said I want a car, you're gonna give them credit for that.

SPEAKER_03 42:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

You said you want the red car. I understood you. I'm so glad you told me what you want. Thank you for saying. Again, credit goes back to the child as if their voice had done it.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

And so you can keep this up where they get examples pouring into them that is just a little bit bigger than where they are right now.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Now there's so much to say about this, but I think I should stop there because that's that's probably the first next step.

SPEAKER_05 43:23

That's just wonderful because um I mean, and and this information that you have just shared can make such a big difference on a child with that journey, rather than them waiting and not doing anything until the speech pathologist sees them. So you can imagine how much progress that child would have made um with the this early information and parents being empowered about how to help their child doing this process. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Do you have time for a little story on that? Yeah, sure, sure. Okay, so one of My students was doing this, and then this was at the time before the iPad, and he had a machine where the battery were out, and then mom had to order a battery, and it was a two-week delay. So this child wasn't going to have his sentences or his voice for two weeks. What happened was that he took his board with him and he touched the areas on the board that built his sentence, even though there was no battery. And then he looked at it and then he spoke what the board was supposed to say. Oh wow. Yeah. And then the mom was like, oh my gosh. And then by the time the battery came, because he had been doing this, like he also was autistic. And at the time that this transition happened, I think he was 10 or so. And um, this was for several years ago. And since he was speaking what the board was supposed to say, and then he would look up to his mom as if the board had just said it to him. She just continued to do what we were doing. Thank you for telling me. I understood you. I know that you want this. Yeah. They never put the battery back in. The battery came and we never used it again. Yeah. Because this again became his runway.

SPEAKER_05 45:04

Yes. Yeah. That is such a lovely story. Such a lovely story.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

It's a true story.

SPEAKER_05 45:11

And a reminder about why we should engage and do the things that you've been telling us earlier. I'm going to remember this. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

This this past year. You have another story time? I don't know. Yeah, sure. Sure. Okay. So this past year I was working with a little one who was having tons of meltdowns. Like she was in preschool half days, and in a typical week, she was having about six to ten meltdowns a day. It was, and we're a half day school, you know, so it was really hard. We gave her one of these devices, and I don't think anybody really knew what her IQ actually was, because within two months of using a machine, her meltdowns were about two a week. Oh. Yeah. From six to ten a day to two a week. And that was because when she wanted something, she was able to combine, oh, here's a picture. And then she knew how to use it a little bit on the board, and she knew how to erase and she knew how to resay, and she was a very quick learner. And that's when I I said, Holy buckets, guys, you need to know that this girl's IQ is probably pretty high, even though her appearance had been that it was quite low. And the difference in her happiness and everybody's joy in just eight weeks was tremendous.

SPEAKER_05 46:30

Yeah. It's uh I mean, uh the it's exactly the same way I feel when and you would know when a child has a lot of information in their mind. It's the way they would problem solve things, even without being able to say a word, but you would see them being very smart and doing those things. And and then you look and say, we need to work and help to build the communication. And and you can see why there's sometimes some children may be wrongly given um a diagnosis because of the challenging behavior when they have meltdowns and all that, and you see parents saying, Oh, I just want this to stop, I just want this to stop. But then you can clearly see that it's frustration from communication, not being able to communicate. And this is what I try very much to explain to families that the behaviors are communicating, the need for them to be empowered to be able to say these things and long before they reach the stage where they're having the meltdowns. Yeah. Right, so if you can what would you say a worried parent should do? I mean, for us, the in in the United Kingdom, we have mainly the National Health Service. There are pathways when um children are picked up from the community, so from if the nursery, um, if they have met their developmental milestones, if their concerns, then before they go to school, we've got people called the health visitors who visit the families and just do well, in those days they used to go, they used to go home to see the families, but now they're so few and far between that some people sometimes don't even know who their health visitors are because the resources now so spread thin. But they do go for their regular two-year checks and things. And so sometimes if there are concerns there or whether the child has said anything, then they're referred at that point. But the problem is the weight is exceptionally long. So in the UK, I don't know about the US, but you know, many families have been on that four years and they've not been able to get an appointment through. And this is this is what the concern is is that you have children who are missing out on a chunk of things that would help aid their development. And if you have a parent who's practicing that with their child on a daily basis, how much more that child would be able to do and communicate without having to, they might get to the speech pathologist and they say to them, Well, you're cured.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

And isn't that the goal? Isn't that the ideal?

SPEAKER_05 49:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:07

Exactly. Yeah. So what would you be your advice for families to do?

SPEAKER_01 49:12

And that is a great question. It is somewhat tricky because my advice is when you're concerned, you get an assessment. However, what you're saying is what's happening here in the US too. You get on a wait list for an assessment. During the most critical time of development, you're on a wait list. And like that's part of the reason I made the language of play, because I see this. So ideally, if you have concerns, if you have worries, you get on a wait list for the speech pathologist. Is that the best? No. It's to get an evaluation now. That's the best. And then go from there. If you don't have a way to get that evaluation done right away, I think that the next thing is to go searching yourself. You find places where you can learn as mom and dad of what early intervention things you can do. And there are many, you know, like when I work in my school job, I'm working with the kiddos. When I'm doing my business, I'm working with the parents. So I have these different hats on, but it goes together, doesn't it? We want our children to do well. Yes, we want that speech pathologist to intervene, but we know they're not enough available. So if there aren't enough available, my next thought is you and me. They go to Early Intervention Matters podcast and they listen for the episodes that are going to help them with what they're struggling with. They go to the language of play and they start having conversations. They contact you, they contact me, they contact some others and they say, What do we have available? Again, the harder part with that, like let's say somebody in the UK wanted to get an evaluation, maybe online, and that other person's here in the US, then it's probably a pay out of pocket.

SPEAKER_05 50:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

And that's the other hard part.

SPEAKER_05 50:54

So in the UK now, there's been in recent years, when I when I started practicing, which is over two decades ago, most people were going through the government funded service because they could get in and get seen. Fast forward till today, which became worse after the pandemic, you get waiting list for a couple of years or three years, depending on where it is. And if you think about, we're talking about the critical time of a child's development, three, four years waiting to have an assessment. And you're not even going to, you know, that's the first appointment sometimes to get seen.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

So yeah, and it's not what's good, it's not what's best. It's not good.

SPEAKER_05 51:34

Right. It's not good at all. And what is also happening is typically you've seen the child, and I've had a clinic today, it's been the same thing, it's been what happens on a regular basis, but then the res this the services the child needs is not coming any quicker because that child is still going to wait to access those same things that you knew they needed from the beginning, but it's not available. So I would say something like, he needs to see their speech and language therapies. And sometimes I could refer, and that referral is declined because obviously they've got to raise their threshold about the children that they accept because of the demands. So that's why it's so crucial because children are losing valuable developmental years sitting on a wait list or waiting for um a professional where sometimes they get seen once and then discharged. And then, you know, so they've been waiting for years. They get seen once. No, they don't mean to get seen multiple times. It's very rare to get such um continuous input. And that's why I feel work that you're doing, Dunalin, is so valuable. And, you know, like we said at the beginning, one of the commonest, in fact, it's the commonest concern that comes through to me as a neurodevelopmental pediatrician is children's speech and language. And that's one of the commonest things that come through. And they need to have that knowledge and input. And that's why I s I so much value the work you're doing because that is just fantastic. And the fact that you are, you know, coaching parents, helping them to understand brain science, helping them to just understand. You know, it's just great. I, you know, it's one of the things I keep saying to people, I love doing in sense that when I have parents with me in the clinic, I love breaking down information and explaining to them. So I used to have chats with me, brain chats with me and things, because I always felt that it was important to understand and shift that mindset from oh, it's just the behavior, but understanding why what is happening is happening. And and this is so important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

I think so. I know so. I just like you, I know so. Yeah, and I wish I had the key to having enough speech pathologists in the world that everybody that wanted an evaluation could have one. But it still means that the evaluation gives you a score. But what you're living with is a child. And the score only tells you one small piece about that child. A snapshot in this moment of these skills in this way today. You know, like that's all it tells you.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

And based on that snapshot, we say the child has a disability or doesn't have a disability. And if they do have a disability, then they get services. And if they don't, they don't. But you know as Yeah, and you know as well as I do, if somebody, let's say 70 is the score that you cut off with, the person that scores 70 is considered disabled and they get service. And the person that gets 71 is not disabled and gets nothing. But there's no difference between the person with 70 and 75. There's they need support. They need help. And so the next people in line, it's mom and dad. And I wouldn't I would even say, Mom and dad, you're first in line.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

But when you are looking at somebody who actually gets that score or doesn't get that score, you're only behind the speech path because she's got the scores.

SPEAKER_05 55:11

Yeah. Yeah. That's one of my bugbears with rating children. And, you know, I've got my bugbears with them rigid scoring of children and people saying, Oh, this is rich, the cutoff, so he doesn't have this. And I'm like, no, don't look at children like scores. You know, children are not rigid scores because you'd have to understand the whole child, you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

And moms and dads do. And even coming into your office and my office, we understand what we see that day and what people tell us. And we do the best we can with that information. But moms and dads, they know what keeps them up at night. They know his favorite toys.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

They know their children.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

Absolutely. And they are the key to being able to draw out from the child what is really going to work with that child. So the partnership is huge.

SPEAKER_05 56:03

Amazing. Amazing. Gosh, we are not getting to the end of the it's been amazing. And you know, we've learned so much. You know, you you started off by differentiating what uh speech and language and bringing us into actually the child's world where the child is at, which is the that creativity, imagination, exploring, that's where they're at. But many times as adults, we are way up there, and our expectations and demands on them is quite a way off from where they are. And in order to be able to get the best out of them and enhance the skills, we need to be down in their world, and then we don't get frustrated about things which they're, you know, it's play for them. But we can use that to engage and begin to encourage them to communicate. And I love the way you model several aspects of getting a child to talk from a child who is not saying anything, but you are giving credit to the child. And I really love that that phrase about giving the credit to the child and you know, building from there. We talked about the misconceptions, but also the value of things like signing, how it opens up the runway to communication for the child. And that was that was really good. Just for families who think, oh, I don't want my child to sign. Now I've seen that in clinic as well, where parents decline, you know, the signing, and it's like, no, that's actually opening up your child's communication. So it is it's it's been it's been great. Um, if you could change one thing about how speech and language therapy is funded or accessed, what would you be? Your wish list. Your wish list to the world now.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Golly, I think access would be that we have more of us. But first I want to comment. That was a really good summary. You did a really good job to summarize the whole thing. I'm impressed. I'm really impressed. But thank you. The idea of access is is hinging on the number of us that there are and aren't. So the natural thing that I'd wish for is that there are more. And and funding, I I guess I'm no expert in how funding happens, but I also think that there's there must be ways to have funding happen through like nonprofits or grants or scholarships or like there I know of one because I I interviewed on my podcast Amanda Barati with Small Steps in Speech, and they give scholarships. And that's why I interviewed her because they have this program where they give scholarships for speech therapy. So there's that episode and that resource. But I don't even know offhand. I don't remember if that's just United States. I think it might be. But that's the only one that I know of. But that's my next thing that I think because I I think it would be great if there was some resource like that that wasn't tied to wasn't tied to disability, but rather it was tied more to teaching moms and dads how we can teach at home. So we we give the tools and it becomes a way of communicating. So when I talk about the language of play and that whole idea of of moms and dads learning that, I think of this as like positive parenting became a strategy that was really popular. And I think of if if this way of communicating, which goes right along with the brain science, if this became a way, maybe this would be something that would be funded as we we fund that because we're a nonprofit or we're a whatever. I don't have any of that built into my system yet. But it's uh yeah, that's about as good as I can do for you to answer that question.

SPEAKER_05 59:49

Well, that's funny. It's um I think one of the things I picked up from our conversations is that we need to look at other ways of removing the focus from just the therapists being there and just like what you are doing. It's like we have to train more moms and dads. And daycare providers, early child care providers. Yeah, you need to be able to empower all those other people in the child's day-to-day life to do those things that because we we are not going to get the numbers of speech pathologists that we need to be able to serve in this era of funding cuts and budgets and things, you know, being realistic. At least in the UK, we keep being reminded of cuts to services and things. So we're living in a world where we have more children having needs and less funding. And so we need to look at how we scale up the people who are in the child's life all the time to do those things. And that's why, you know, I really like your approach of the language of play, because I think it's got huge potential to do, it's got a very huge potential to be able to reach out to lots more, and and I think it's something that you should think about and with its growth at scaling up because that's one great thing that it's doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

Thank you. Yeah, it would be lovely. Yeah. I'm not at that level right now to even think like that, but but it is something that I kind of dream into.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:24

Yeah. Yeah. But it will come. I can see it coming. I can see it coming. So do you do you work with clients outside the United States?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:33

Yes. Anybody that speaks English. I can't help you if you don't speak English. It's my only fluent language.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:38

Yeah. So you can hear that. You can work with the families as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

Yep. And I do. And it's been super fun because I I love the cultural differences. I learn a lot. It's very fun. But yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:51

So where can people find you? Do you know what I mean? As we come to the end of the show. Thank you for asking that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:57

The language of play. So my website is thelanguageofplay.com. And my email is hello at thelanguageofplay.com. And my podcast is the language of play. It's all the language of play.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:10

Oh, it's been a delight having you. Thank you. It's been an amazing, amazing session. And I'm so pleased that we were able to have you to join us to talk about what is a major um, you know, the issue that we're finding. And like you said, it's the one thing that families are on the internet looking around for. And I like what you said that when families are seeking information, they they the internet is a myriad of things that you find there. You you find it credible, not so credible. You find all kinds of things. And if you're a family that you're desperate to get help, sometimes you don't know who you're searching for. So I like the advice that you gave about people making sure that they have researched who they're going for, they make sure they're credible, they understand their methods as well. Because one thing you don't want is you know to be told this, and then you go in and um you get something totally different from what you planned for. So um we really appreciate you coming. And I'm sure we're going to have you back on hopefully in the near future. But it's been an amazing session, and thank you so much for the great work you're doing. And you know, I can tell somebody who's passionate when they start talking. And uh thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a delight and a pleasure, and I'm really honored to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:36

As we always say, early intervention leads to better outcome. And early intervention can only be achieved by early diagnosis. So, thank you for listening into the series today. Um, I know some of the things we've talked about today would probably have generated some questions or need to seek clarification. So, I'm happy to take questions and I'll invite you to send your questions to EIM at drtakon.com. Thank you for listening.