Ming from Agents of Speech explains how to teach non-verbal children to request by withholding desired items and introducing an open palm gesture instead of grabbing. This behavioral technique, called "manding" in speech therapy, teaches waiting and communication through a simple hand movement you can practice with a micro course on agentsofspeech.com.
So Manning is a very ABA concept, meaning a very behavioral therapy therapy concept. Right. And it means I'm withholding something and I want the kid to come over, communicate, and I give it to them. But in the speech therapy world, we call it requesting. And I don't want parents to think that this is very robotic or whatever. Every kid asks for things from you. It's just the complexity of which because we have all the resources, kids don't. That's why they come to us and talk to us when they want something. So knowing what they want will lead onto that. You can teach something what we call open palm gesture. So open palm is just basically a kid going like that. And you know, like again, you can go to agents of Speech.com course. We have all the courses there and we have one called micro course which literally teaches you how to do the open palm and why open palm. So instead of the kid grabbing this from you, they're supposed to wait.
