A short instructional video by Ming @ Agents of Speech about encouraging children with speech delays to talk more without pressuring them. Ming warns that constantly requiring children to ask for permission can sour the relationship and suggests giving free items in small quantities, then slowly increasing expectations for language (i.e., leveling up the demand for speech) as a strategy.
When do you ask your child to say something? 9 out of 10? For parents, it's, oh, because I want the child to ask for permission. I want them to respect me. I've been talking about this for a long time now, and it feels like whenever a child is asking for permission for something that they're supposed to get, it gives them like a bad taste in their mouth and therefore the relationship turns sour. Because every time they want something, they have to talk. Talking isn't really that easy for the particular child who's delayed. How do we go about it? Do we just give the kid something without them talking? No, you need to give free stuff to your kid in small quantities and slowly level up the demand for language. And this is no easy thing to teach you here. You need to think about. Okay, so if every time the language function for a child is to actually just to get to a point where they're asking for oh, I want or mommy, give me whatever, always asking for permission, asking, like requesting for something, you're not going to go far.
