How Much Therapy Time do You Need at Home?

Hey, guys. Welcome to this video. My name is Ming from agentsofspeech.com today we're going to talk about how much training, speech therapy, ABA therapy, whatever therapy you should do at home. How much is enough? How much is too much? First of all, I want to talk about home training. It's far more important than going to therapy, okay? Because your child can, you know, talk in sentences, play really well and behave like an angel. But at the time that they go back home, it's like 180 degrees flip and everything goes to, like, goes to waste or something. And a lot of parents will tell me, oh, it's total opposite, opposite person. He's smiling, he's having fun with you in the clinic. But, you know, once he's home, he's just another person again. All right? So home training is real important. And usually why this is the case is because of you, okay? And I'm not telling it's your fault. It's just that your child is used to talking to you in that way, used to behaving that way when you're around, and they're not used to behavior, being well behaved, and they're not ready to learn with you. Right? So it starts with you as a parent, as an instructor, as a teacher, okay? And you need to know how, when to switch off certain aspects of your interaction with him or her at home, okay? And this is easily done with a 10 to 15 minute direct training every day. Set a schedule that you will sit down with your kid, no matter what with them, and teach them something. And that's something doesn't need to be really hard. In fact, you always start with something easy to get them to comply with you. And once they understand, like, this is part of the routine, right. Compliance comes easy because they cannot escape from it. They look forward to it, actually. It becomes like an anchor. And in your relationship with him, he wants it. Right? It's rewarding for both parties. It's systematic, it's structured. So I always like to, you know, tell parents to have this type of 10 to 15 minute direct structured training. And why a lot of other therapists. And I'm not saying bad things about them. It's just that from what I see, it's my personal opinion, okay, is that if we use a lot of the methods that therapists talk about. Right. That I talk about as well, right. Like play naturally, you know, language facilitation, you know, like observe, wait and listen and all that good stuff. It's real good. By the way, the thing is we can do that in the clinic all day, every day, okay? Because we, the toys are ours, the place is ours. We've constructed the place how every, we want it, right? But at home it's another different ball game. Okay? And if the therapist goes to your house and tries those methods, the effectiveness does go down as well. And it depends on the skill level of the therapist and how much your child and the therapist can like, are compatible with each other. Right? You need that 10 to 15 minute direct training to change the role, to change the flip the script about who you are to the kid. Or else, you know, kids will just say, ah, mom's mom, I can do whatever I want to them even if they cannot talk. Right? They're already in their minds, they're thinking, they're thinking about the labeling this person as how much they can like, can do with them. They testing the bottom line of the new nanny. Like they're testing the bottom line of this therapist. Right? So you need to have that structure, have that compliance, right? And to do that, it's, it's not as hard as you think, okay. And I cannot go through all the things that we talk about here, but you know, you can always join our Facebook group for, for parents of speech delay children. We, you know, you can see a lot of other parents trying out those, those things as well. And we also have a, I have an online course for parents which I'll also put it in the description box. So number three, is that what I said just now? You should be always facilitating, but without all the demanding, okay? So language facilitation is something that all parents, all caregivers, all therapists, all teachers should do. And what it is basically is to give instead of to get something out of the kid. When we're teaching a kid, we're always asking them for response, right? We're always wanting to get something from them. We're like, oh, you give me this response, come on, I'll give you this reward, come on, I'll play with you if you tell me what you know, right? So none of that. In fact, we want to give instead. So it's refreshing for the kid to feel like, ah, finally, I'm not, I'm not stressed anymore because mom and dad doesn't ask me and quiz me a lot. So when you do that, it's going to take a much longer. Well, what in agents of speech we call the slow way, right, Is to facilitate without demanding them all the time, right? So when you do that, it's easier for the child to absorb what you have to say. More time to think about it. And they might not use this now. Use the words now, but later down the line, it's a long term plan, is that you're planting seeds and them and teaching them words at that specific time. And you can do this throughout the day because it's not demanding at all. You're only demanding your child's attention for 10 to 15 minutes. Right. And other times you're just facilitating without demands. And if you do give demands and commands, make sure that you help them to finish those demands and commands. Like physically, like if you tell them to open the door and they don't, then they learn to ignore you. What you need to do is to, after instructing them, grab them by the hand and finish the task and then say good, good job. That's it. How long you train at home, it shouldn't be a time frame, it should be the quality of it. If you have quality training and a structured task, make sure you keep it short, like 10 to 15 minutes. Children of 2 to 3 year old, their attention span is very short. You cannot think of them as like being able to sit there for an hour or two with you. Okay? 10 to 15 minutes of focused work is all you need in the beginning. Okay, in the beginning. Later on we will increase as they get older. And if you need to teach anything else, training doesn't only stop in those 10 to 15 minutes. You always have to facilitate them without demanding. Okay? That's something you have to understand. Training doesn't stop. It's just in different ways and different intensities. And it really depends on what your therapist says and what assess like after assessment, what you, what they think is, is suitable for you and your kid. Okay. I know that a lot of parents, especially in Asia, are very like, what can I do right now? What can I do to help my kid? Can I do more? There are many stories I can tell you that I tell a parent to do it for 10 minutes, they end up doing 30 minutes and the next time I come, they're not interested in the task anymore. Right? So you have to think in a way that, oh, why did the therapist tell me this? If you don't understand, ask why. If you don't, if you don't agree with things, you should like not telling you to argue, which you can feel free to argue with me if you want to. But what I mean is to ask why. Why is it that you're telling me to do so little when there's so much to Catch up. There's not enough time or whatever that parents like to say. And I don't totally understand because I'm not a parent. Okay. I'm not in a rush. I'm here to help you, to tell you, like, what are the steps to. For us to catch up? All right. I know that it's very like, I'm trying to empathize with you as well, that I understand you want it fast, but sometimes as a third person, I can tell you these are the steps we need to go through, and these are the things we need to do right now in order to achieve it. And I've done this before. A few times, right? A few times. So I kind of understand how much your child can. Can withstand and how much you can withstand before you both implode on yourselves and the relationship gets really hard to have a working relationship with your kid, like, later on. Right. With that said, thank you so much for tuning in. If you have any questions, have any comments about whatever we're talking about here, just put them in the comment section and be sure to check out our checklist for home therapy. You can go to agentsofspeech.com checklist to grab a list of the tools and toys we recommend for home therapy. Okay? So thanks so much, and I'll see you in the next video very soon. We also have a lot of live videos that we do every Monday. Make sure you're subscribed and press notification so that you know when we go live where we can answer your questions live. Okay, that's all. See you. Bye. Bye.