Ming from Agents of Speech explains that rewarding speech-delayed children when they communicate makes them more likely to do it again. Kids respond better to people who consistently reward their attempts to talk, smile, and share, which strengthens those behaviors over time.
If you want something to happen over and over again, you reward those behaviors. Rewards can be naturalistic, can be natural. As long as you have a better relationship with your child. They come over to kick you, they press some buttons, something falls out. But that's not communication if they're pressing buttons. So what do you have to do is to better your relationship with your child. You become the provider. And that's why a lot of times parents who come to me is that they will say, ming, how come my child doesn't hit you? How come my child smiles at you? How come they want to share things with me, watch videos together? And whereas when I go over, I get slapped, right? Or they will throw tantrums or whatever. The reason is because I have a better relationship with them in terms of work, right? I will never have the same kinship as between you and your child. That's impossible. But what I'm trying to say is it's because I reward the things that I deem to be good, right? And therefore, the kid knows if they consistently do things this way, they will get rewarded more and more, and therefore, that behavior will keep on going.
