A short instructional video by Ming (Agents of Speech) explaining how parents can encourage verbally able children who use single words to naturally combine words. Ming recommends 'communication sabotage'—making the child's existing single-word routine less efficient (e.g., feigning not understanding, withholding full access to desired items) and prompting more specific, multi-word requests while offering small amounts and modeling longer phrases.
Chapters
Hey, this is Ming here, and I wanted to talk about how to teach your child to combine words naturally. So I just got off from a few parent consultations, and bulk of them had a verbal child, and they were stuck with, like, single words and they didn't know how to get through. So let me just really quickly tell you what the situation was at home. So whenever the child wanted something, mom or dad would prompt by going, what do you want? And then they would prompt, I want, underscore, and the child would be able to say the word. Or sometimes when the child gets like, just goes, right? And then the mom says, you say, or. Or what? Hoping the child would say the word. And usually they do. Okay. Because that's how the structure and the routine is for the child, right? That communication is efficient to them, right? To them it's efficient, to you it's not efficient. To them, it's far too efficient. Every time I want something, I point, I make a sound, you respond with a question or like a high tone. I say the word, I get the item. That's it, Right? That's it. So why did I say that's it Is because in the communication, when you want to teach something, it needs to have repetition, right? So what do we do here is that some of the kids, right, two of them are able to use single words right away, right? But they cannot get the kid to use more than a single word every time, they will have the prompt again, it becomes a routine and a habit. Again, use single word. The mom prompts, what? Something like cookie, right? What? Cookie. Oh, eat cookie. Good. All right. Or I want cookie. By the way, I don't like using I want in therapy. It might be cool sometimes to add another two words in front, but actually I want is one word. We have another video about that. So if you want to go watch it afterwards. Okay, so how you do it is very simple. How you increase it naturally is very simple, right? Because your child's communication right now is far too efficient. You need to make it less efficient. So how do you do that? It's something that we call sabotage of communication, right? And I've been talking about this pretty openly, and it's no secret in the. In the therapy world, but I. I feel like there's a lot of parents who don't know about this. So how do we do it? Is that your child wants a cookie, right? They say cookie, and that's not communicative enough, right? So I want you to sabotage it and like, yeah, cookie. And then you put it on your head, or like, you point it out or you put it on the table, or you give it to someone else because they weren't telling you exactly what to do. Which is my next point. But to sabotage a communication is very simple. You have identified the routine and the habit. That's. That's. It's like a cycle every time. And break it. Sabotage it, right? When they push you, they go or whatever. Resist to give verbal cues. Okay? Why? Because you can never fade out of verbal cue. As we were talking about in some of our videos, is that real therapy is all about finding a cue that works and then use it, right? And then get rid of it so that it comes out naturally. That's how you do it. And any kind of therapy is always like that. Okay, so how do we sabotage it is by them saying something, and you take it too literally or you don't understand them. The only reason your child can say one word or pull you or, like, put your hand on something and they get what they want is because you understand the situation, right? So in turn, what you should be doing is do exactly what their language tells you. All right, so what do you do that next point is you require your child to be very specific. So how do you get your child to be specific? So, for instance, let me just talk about the cookie thing. So if your child wants a cookie, first of all, pretend you don't understand. When they go, what do you mean, I don't understand? Oh, and before they say anything, you want cookie, right? So when he says cookie, and then you're like, yeah, the cookie's right there. Sabotage it. Afterwards, before they get too angry, you start prompting and give cues and give a helping hand, and you say, yeah, the cookies there and you want it. Let me help you. First you go up and you say, take the cookies, right? Take the cookies. And then you open the jar, right? And you take them out, right? Take cookies out or whatever, right? And then after that, give and then eat and then close it, and then you put it back on top, and you make sure that the cookie has a small piece so that he or she wants to ask again. Okay? See, that's why every time it's a routine that they say something, it goes through the routine of saying one word, you're prompting more, and then they. They say it, and then they get it, and then they run off, right? So this time I want you to change it and only give a little bit, right? When you give a little bit, what's going to happen is, like, they want More and they will ask for more. And you can do it again. And this time you can require them to talk because they already know what you're going to do. You take it down, you're going to open it, you're going to take it out and give it. Right. So everything has a step, including everything that they want from you. Even if it's a phone, a tablet, Right. You have to take it from somewhere, you have to unlock it, you have to swipe, you have to go there, press YouTube and give it to them. Right. So. And then press play as well. So those are all opportunities to teach word combining. Right. Because if they say one word, okay. It's not specific enough, then you do something really silly. Right. If you say open only, then I'll start opening drawers. Right. I'll open a bag or whatever. Yeah. Open. Here you go. I open it, Right. It's not specific enough because they're using the context to tell you that. So that's why you see a lot of children or even adults, if they don't have the vocabulary, they will say this one, that one. I want that, I want this. Because they're using that to cover up the deficits in language is that they don't have the word and they're using the context to help them communicate. Yeah. So if you act silly when they say something that is not specific enough, it teaches them why they're supposed to use language in the longer term and a longer way. Right. And the reason why I'm making these long form videos is because there's a lot of nuances and I want to be specific about how I'm talking to you as well. Right. And speaking is the most effective way to communicate. So right now, right. It's easy to speak as easy to listen. And so that's why we talk. And when we talk longer is because we want to be specific. We don't want any confusion. Right. The less words you use, the more confusing it gets when the context has a lot of things going on, especially in a household. So you never remember that. Okay, so that's it for today's video. Real short one. And I'll see you in the next video soon. Okay. If you haven't, please go to agents of Speech.com checklist to grab a list of tools and toys to use at home when you start therapy. All right, that's it. Bye.
