What is Word Dancing? Possibly the single best thing families can do to dramatically and positively impact their children’s speech and language,  and their academic future. The research showing the relationship between word dancing and academic prowess is extremely robust. Find out more on Episode 49 of the The Mindful SLP. 

— Useful Links —

A Parent, A child, and Autism, Interview with Rebecca 

Video by Dr. Todd Risely

It’s Never Too Early and It’s Never Too Late by Bradley D Foster

Music: Simple Gifts performed by Ted Yoder, used with permission

Transcript

Dan: What’s the best technique that any parent or even grandparent can use to set their children up for long lasting success in life? Word dancing. That’s right, word dancing. So what is word dancing? And does it result in a new TV show, word dancing with the stars? Let’s find out straight ahead.

Denise: Welcome to The Mindful SLP, the show that explore simple but powerful therapy techniques for optimal outcomes. I’m Denise Stratton, a pediatric speech language pathologist of 30 years. I’m closer to the end of my career than the beginning, and along the way I’ve worked long and hard to become a better therapist.

Join me and I’ll do my best to make your journey smoother. I found the best therapy comes from employing simple techniques with a generous helping of mindfulness. Joining me in the conversation is Dan, my technical wizard and office manager.

Dan: Welcome back to the mindful SLP today’s episode is just a little different. We aren’t just talking to speech therapists today. We want to help every parent and perhaps all adults who work with children. This is an episode that you can share with parents of your clients, friends, or anyone who could benefit. Denise, what is word dancing and why are we talking about this today?

Denise: In my usual roundabout way of answering questions, I’m going to talk about why we’re talking about it, and then I’ll tell you what word dancing is. That’s the way my brain works. Have you ever had that thing happen to you? Where you read a newspaper article, you don’t agree with it, it gets you up in arms and you’re like, I’ve got to write a letter to the editor.

Dan: Yeah, I’ve done that.

Denise: But then you don’t write the letter. Oh, that happened to me. I didn’t write the letter, but it did get me up in arms. A few years ago, I read an article about a study someone had done showing children from lower socioeconomic groups did better academically when they went to preschool.

Dan: Okay, I could see that.

Denise: The articles written like that, end of story, that’s your solution. That’s all you can do. Full stop. If you’re from this demographic, you must send your children to preschool or they’re doomed to failure. That was the tone of the article. And this didn’t sit well with me. I don’t believe a family with less means has to put their child in preschool in order for them to succeed academically.

What does it even say about all the preschools being closed during Covid? Yeah. Okay, your child is now certainly doomed because that was your only option.

Dan: There’s a whole generation of kids that are doomed.

Denise: Well, I thought if the study had examined what kind of behaviors the family participated in, then they would have pinpointed the real x-factor. What makes someone succeed academically? So they didn’t solve for X that’s what got me up in arms. They didn’t offer solution other than you must send your child to preschool if you’re in this group. So that’s what we’re talking about. Why do many children that come from these environments end up with poor academic outcomes? So that’s the real question.

Dan: Okay. So I’m getting the sense of why. Can you give me an example?

Denise: Yeah, so my mother grew up in a family with eight children and they lived on a ranch. They didn’t have many luxuries. I overheard a conversation between my aunt and my mother and my aunt said it wasn’t until I was in college and taking an economics class that I realized we were at the lower end of the economic scale.

If we weren’t actually poor, we were really close to it, but I never felt poor. And then the conversation moved onto what a great teacher my grandmother was. My aunt and my mother talked about how she always talked to the children about what they were doing. If they were buttoning up their sweater, she said, let’s count your buttons.

If they were climbing up the stairs, she said, let’s count the stairs. She just talked and talked and talked to them about everything they were doing. So although my grandmother didn’t know the fancy name for what she was doing, it’s called word dancing.

Dan: Oh, okay. Tell me more.

Denise: So that’s word dancing, talking about what you do. And so let’s dive into this a little bit deeper. So it turns out that whether families talk a lot or a little bit to their children, all families use the same amount of directive language. Can you guess what directive language is?

Dan: Well directive language, that sounds like giving directions, orders. Do this, do that. Don’t touch this. Don’t touch that. Go brush your teeth, clean your room. Usually about three words in length.

Denise: It’s not very complex, is it? It is the language for getting business done. Yeah. And every family has to get business done. Right. But directive language is simple, it’s relating to the here and now, it’s used for maximum effectiveness. It’s not rich, complex, or interesting. The opposite of directives is word dancing. So we’re dancing is the, what ifs, the remember whens, and wouldn’t you rather kind of language.

Dan: Give me some examples.

Denise: What if you were a mouse, where would you live? I remember when we went on a picnic, would you rather have macaroni or spaghetti?

You know, things like that. Chatty families, those who talk a lot, automatically word dance. And this is why, because the same amount of directive language is used in every family. It’s a constant. So those families who talk more. Have more room for language that isn’t related to the business of getting things done. And that naturally becomes the word dancing language.

Dan: I see. So the research shows they use the exact same amount of directive, but it’s what they do beyond that, that makes the difference.

Denise: Yes, that’s exactly it. The chatty habit exposes children to the richness of language that has enormous effects on their IQ and vocabulary.

Dan: I’m starting to get this now.

Denise: So, if you talk to your child a lot, you have so much more room. You have room to tell jokes and to sing songs and to make up rhymes, to pose hypothetical questions. Talk about shapes, numbers, colors, and listen to your child talk back to you. So this begins long before their child can talk back to them.

Dan: Oh, really?

Denise: Yes. A family who is very talkative to an infant is going to be very talkative with a preschooler, right? It’s not because the child can talk back to you. You know, from day one, they’re talking a lot to the child.

Dan: Doesn’t the research also show that babies who can’t talk, but hear a lot of language are still going to improve because they’re absorbing language?

Denise: Yes, that’s what this is, they’re absorbing the language. So by the time a child is four, a child from a talkative family could have heard 50 million words, millions more than a child from a non talkative family who might have heard maybe 13 million.

Dan: So that’s like a three X.

Denise: That’s a huge difference. It builds on itself. These children end up having a significant advantage in reading, literacy, social communication, and eventually economic status.

Dan: Yeah. Because all this builds on each other. If you have these underlying things, the reading, the literacy, the social community. That builds and allows them, even if they’re in a lower status to be able to escape that.

Denise: Yeah. And they’ve got confidence and speaking to that, extra words are also feel good words.

Dan: What do you mean by that?

Denise: If you’re pretty much just doing directive language, there’s a lot of no’s in there. There’s a lot of negatives. Don’t do that. Hear that you’re doing the wrong thing a lot. So the emotional benefit is huge when you have a talkative family because the child hears so much more affirmations. I mean, you have to have a certain amount of nos. Those are always going to happen. So you need to balance it out…

Dan: With a bunch of yeses or an affirmation, how does that impact everybody or how’s this help? Yeah, okay.

Denise: So I mean, a child from a talkative family might hear five or six more times that they are right then they’re wrong.

Dan: That has to be way more beneficial for their self-estem.

Denise: Yes, and it’s so easy to do. This research I’m talking about was done by Dr. Betty Hart and Dr. Todd Risley. So they studied these children in their home environments from the age of seven months, before they could talk. So they were recording what the parents said to them, and they followed them through third grade, nice longitudinal study, and they were able to see the IQ differences between the children who came from talkative families versus non talkative families was significant, even when they controlled for all the socioeconomic factors and race. So with their statistical magic, which I don’t quite understand how they do, you know, they were able to take out those factors and say, this is the one thing. The race doesn’t matter, socioeconomic status doesn’t matter. It’s the amount of talking that matters.

Dan: I can see how that oh, wow. That’s fun, I’d love to see that study.

Denise: In fact, Dr. Risley said in this video I’m going to link so you can watch it, he said the relationship between the academic outcome and the talkative families is as strong as the measures will allow. Wow. So as strong as the statistical analysis will let you account for.

Dan: Yeah. It’s like so close to a hundred percent folks. We, if we set a hundred percent, nobody would believe us.

Denise: So if there is a poverty effect, it’s a poverty of words.

Dan: Uh, that’s deep. That’s deep. That’s good. Okay. And anybody can do this. That’s the important thing here. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor. Either you’re inflicting the poverty on your children of words, or you are giving them a billionaire’s dream of words.

Denise: And in my career as a speech therapist, I’ve heard stories of parents who immigrated to this country who wanted their children to learn English. So they stopped speaking in their native language and their children missed out on all of the complexity of word dancing.

Dan: Right. Because the parents wouldn’t know English that well.

Denise: Yeah. So not a good idea. I mean, children need that rich language. They need it in their own language. They need in their native language that will prepare them to succeed as they also learn English.

Dan: Yeah. And I think that’s important. The amount of talking in the home is completely controlled by the parent. And so everybody can do this.

Denise: You don’t need to feel like you’re in a helpless or hopeless situation.

Dan: Right. But it’s got to become a habit. I mean, this is not going to just happen naturally. As a parent, you need to think about this and make this happen. So give me some ideas, what could I, as a parent do to adopt this habit?

Denise: Because in some families it is a habit. It’s multi-generational, but if it’s not, you can start it. Yeah. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. How can you make this happen? Well, there’s bedtime stories.

Dan: Who doesn’t like a bedtime story?

Denise: Everyone loves a bedtime story.

Dan: Read your kids a bedtime story, they’re going to get language.

Denise: Or tell them a bedtime story from your head or whatever.

Dan: And that’s important. I think too, is telling kids stories from your head, because that’s where you, as a parent can share stories of your life with your kids.

Denise: Yes. Especially stories about when you were a little naughty and they do like that. They really like to hear that.

Dan: Our kids sure did. And I had plenty of stories for them.

Denise: Family stories that get passed down through generations. You can start this tradition now, if it isn’t one.

Dan: The stories you heard from your parents and your grandparents about things, it could be anything, yeah.

Denise: Look at pictures of families and friends. Okay, you can pull your phone out for this one, but mainly the electronic devices should be put away for word dancing. But you talk about who, where, what, when, that has to do with those pictures. Like you’re looking through a photo album, right. But our photo albums are now on our phones.

Dan: Oh yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s true. I remember looking at photo albums with my parents and reliving all the stories of all the different things. And as a kid, I wasn’t around for all of those things. So that, that helped me live more and get closer to my family, because I saw those pictures.

Denise: You can play the which is better game, for example, which is better cats or dogs. Children are going to have opinions on that, and my opinion was cats. Jokes, and riddles. Okay, they’re going to try and retell these and the results are usually hilarious.

Dan: So there is a place for dad jokes.

Denise: There is a place for dad jokes.

Dan: Oh, this one I really like, have a dress up box. This is something that we have. I know you had one too, in your family, but then we pass this on to our kids. What is a dress-up box?

Denise: It’s all the castoffs.

Dan: It’s all the old clothes and costumes and everything that kind of piles up.

Denise: And my family never bought dress up clothes. You don’t have to go buy a costume, right? It’s just what you have. Use what you have. You could maybe go to a thrift store and pick something up. But kids can do a lot with old robes and dish towels and safety pins, right?

Dan: Oh yeah, we did it all.

Denise: The dress up box leads to play acting and play acting leads to really rich language and word dancing. So anytime we got the dress up box out, a play was involved of some kind.

Dan: And that’s so helpful. I mean, I am definitely an extrovert, but I think a lot of that came from my early years because we were putting on plays all the time and I love to be on stage because, well, I love being the center of attention. But I think that had a definite effect on how I viewed the world.

Denise: And they’ll actually put on plays for the family. I mean, they love to do that.

Dan: Next step was we did it for the neighbors.

Denise: Did you charge?

Dan: Oh yes. Songs and nursery rhymes. Now this is what I heard a lot as a kid, my mom was always singing nursery rhymes and the songs that go with them, we had records of them and we’d listen to them and it just became the songs of the family. And when I was doing something I didn’t want to do and my mom needed to correct me, that directive language became a song or a nursery rhyme.

Denise: Oh, that’s very clever, just put a twist on the directive language.

Dan: Yeah. And so I knew the song that was coming before, a lot of the times, and sometimes I just sing it to myself and get on with it.

Denise: They are natural to sing along with too and to fill in the rhyme, which I love for that additional language, besides the word dancing. So, you know, I’m all about songs and nursery rhymes.

Dan: So how does this work for children with language disorders? Can you do word dancing with kids with autism?

Denise: Absolutely. And any kind of language disorder. So use visuals, pictures of who you’re talking about. Like I talked about before, you know, you can look at pictures on your phone. You can sketch a little picture to go along with a story. It just helps them put something in their memory, because the words are harder for them to hold onto, into catch and to remember, and to process, pictures are really helpful.

Dan: We had a really good episode where we interviewed the mother of a autistic child. And she really did a great job of using this technique with her son. It’s, it’s definitely worth listening to, we’ll link to it in the show notes. If you want to listen to this, this is a good one.

Denise: And then just adjust your language to their level. And if you’re confused about that, talk to your speech therapist, why do kids love to come to speech therapy? It’s because we word dance with them.

Dan: Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. You’re professional dancers.

Denise: The parents always say he loves to come and it’s not all about the toys. Sometimes we’re doing very simple activities. It’s because we are, word dancing with them.

Dan: And they feel listened to, then they get to participate. Well, parents have different styles too, right?

Denise: Yeah. Make it your own. So my dad loved to recite poetry and he would come in at night sometimes from a bedtime story and recite El Dorado to me, the poem El Dorado.

Dan: I don’t even know that one.

Denise: Well, I had no clue what it was about, but I loved it. He put all this drama in his voice and I just soaked up the words. I just soaked up the experience.

Dan: Yeah. well my dad did that too, but his was different. He did Bible stories and you know, as I grew up as a kid, I love to hear Joshua and the battle of Jericho, cause he always did the sound effects. They went with it with the trumpets (many silly trumpet noises) and he always, you know, he would talk, and of course the one I didn’t like was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego because it always ended with Shadrach, Meshach, and to bed we go.

Denise: Yeah. So your dad had his style. My dad had his style. And I really think some of the millions of words that children hear will be vicarious, because they’re just there. So I clearly remember sitting in my grandmother’s front room and when she would sit down to crochet, she just became really chatty. The TV was never on. And she was probably just talking to my mom, I’m sure. But we were around in the room or whatever. And the words were just flowing out of her. It was just like being bathed in words, she was just chatty.

Dan: And they just absorbed right into you.

Denise: And so what’s really interesting is that same grandmother, this is my father’s mother, always gave us classics for Christmas. Classic books, David Copperfield, and Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights. And I used to wonder if grandma had read those and was giving us her favorites, but one year we got The Mill on the Floss and I was like, oh, no way, nobody reads this. I think grandma’s going from a list. But anyway, it was great for us, but I think her greatest gift was her talkativeness because then my father was talkative. It became a generational thing.

Dan: And people just picked it up, but what if I’m too tired? Parents today, we’re exhausted. We come home, and the last thing we want to do is talk to the kids or tell a story.

Denise: Tell yourself that you are starting a generational thing. This could be the single most meaningful thing you do with your children. Tell yourself that when you’re too tired for the bedtime story, or you think you’re too tired for the bedtime story. Tell yourself that when you want to give your child your phone or your iPad, just to keep them quiet. And by the way, electronics don’t count as word dancing. Do I need to underline that?

Dan: What if your kids are older? Is it too late?

Denise: No. And I know you could feel that way. You could feel like I screwed up. They’re supposed to have 50 million words by the age four.

Dan: Right. So now what to do with their age five, and they’ve only got 20 million?

Denise: There’s this great quote I love that applies to the situation. It’s never too early and it’s never too late.

Dan: I like that. That’s so true.

Denise: Begin as soon as you know it’s something you should do. Let’s talk about Helen Keller for a minute. So she probably heard word dancing up to the age of 19 months, when she got sick and lost her hearing, but then she had no input until Anne Sullivan became her teacher. Helen was nearly seven years.

Dan: She went from 18 months to seven year old with no word input at all. It’s too late for her.

Denise: So you made a few signs, but other than that, pretty much no word input. Well Anne made up for lost time. She wrote that she would pour words into her ears. Don’t you love that?

Dan: Well in her hand in her case, right?

Denise: Well, yes. Yeah, you get what I mean? So it wasn’t too late for Helen, was it?

Right, anne just spent

Dan: all of her time just giving her as many words as she possibly could. And if I remember the story correctly, Helen just, just absorbed it, just sucked it up like a sponge.

Denise: She was a sponge. So take heart if you feel like you’re behind. Once again, it’s never too early and it’s never too late to begin.

Dan: Alright, let’s go back to your mother’s family. You said that they were at the lower end of the social economic scale. What effect did this have on them?

Denise: Well, what have we got here? Teachers? A statesman?

Dan: He was a representative to the Idaho legislature.

Denise: Yes. And also a farmer who’s very progressive.

Dan: Has been doing amazing research with salmon recovery, as part of a sustainable ranching.

Denise: Ranching, yeah. He’s got YouTube videos and stuff. So that’s cool, an architect and international businessman, librarian who’s also a teacher. Performer musician. Oh yes, she is. English professor, um, a office manager. I would say my grandma knew what she was doing.

Dan: Right. Every one of them improved where they were originally and your grandmother is to be commended for that.

Denise: Yeah. So, and this is not to say you have to have that kind of profession or that kind of college degree, because she didn’t. Not every, and not everyone wants to be that. Some people want to have a profession where they don’t have that degree and that’s perfectly fine. Anyone can word dance.

Dan: That’s the important thing. Anyone can do it. So today your challenge is get with your child and start pouring some words into them. Ask them questions, some what if questions. Find out what’s going on inside their minds. Let them just spew words everywhere all over the room.

Denise: Or if they’re not talking yet, you do that. For an in-depth look at the research behind word dancing, I’m going to link to the video by Dr. Todd Risley.

Dan: The video is at children of the code.org/interviews/risley that’s R I S L E Y. Dot htm.

Denise: I also have a blog post on word dancing that you could refer parents to, and that will be on SLP proadvisor.com/blog/ word dancing. Well, thank you so much for listening. I’m really passionate about this topic, so I hope you can share it with whoever you feel might benefit.

Dan: Have a great Christmas vacation and go word dance a little bit.

Denise: And we’ll be back in January.

Dan: Thanks for listening to The Mindful SLP. We invite you to sign up for our free resource library at slpproadvisor.com slash free. You’ll get access to some of Denise’s best tracking tools, mindfulness activities, and other great resources to take your therapy to the next level. All this is for free at SLP proadvisor.com/free. If you enjoyed this podcast, subscribe, and please leave us a review on apple podcasts and other podcast directories.