Ming from Agents of Speech explains why speech-delayed children need rewards paired with communication practice. If social interaction feels punishing to them, pairing speech attempts with snacks or screen time makes talking feel rewarding instead.
Okay, so rewards is natural. In fact, it's supernatural. Why is it supernatural? You ask me? It's because if a child doesn't feel social or communicating as rewarding, then you're actually punishing the child by giving them too much social and trying to communicate with the kid because they don't understand it. Right. It's just like if your spouse. Most people watching are women. So, you know, like I would listen to my wife talk about, know Sephora, don't know anything about it. Don't talk to me, don't ask me, don't ask me about my opinion. It's a punishment. I don't care. Right. So that's the same for your child. So therefore, you should pair the things that you want to happen with the reward that they really do care about. And most of the time it might be snacks, it might be a screen time even. Okay? That's why it's natural that we work for the things we want and we pair the things that we don't like with the things we like and we learn to like the things we don't like.
