Ming from Agents of Speech walks through what you actually need for home speech therapy. A child-sized table and chair, a laminator and printer for flashcards, and most importantly, you. Your engagement and technique matter more than any gadget.
Hey, guys, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today I'm going to talk about what the best tools are for home therapy. Okay? And we obviously already have a list of it. You can download at agents of speech.com checklist as a full list of tools and toys you can get if you're trying to start home therapy right now. Okay? And the reason for this video is to also tell you right ahead that there are some things that are not negotiable. You may get it, and you get it now. Okay? The first one is a table and a chair. And you can get those in Ikea. You can get those in wherever you want, like ACE Hardware if you're in the States or in Indonesia or wherever there's Ace or anything. Children's chair, okay? And a children's table. And I've been working and sitting on a children's chair for a very long time. I don't really have a lot of back pain I used to have. But, you know, if you're a mother, this would be easier for you. Do a little bit more yoga. You know, if you're a father, it is hard on the back, I would say, so stretch more. All right. But nothing beats doing work at the table. Okay? You need to use a kids table because it's preparing them for school. It's letting them know that when they sit down, they have to listen. You're priming them, you're conditioning them, you're teaching them that this is a place for learning, right? So if you don't have that in place, it's very difficult. I see a lot of parents trying to teach a child to. To speak or even worse, like pronouncing different, like articulation. Teaching them specific speech sounds, like doing the s sound like. Or that kind of sound on a sofa, I mean, you can do that, but at the same time, what do you do on a sofa? Usually you put your legs all over. You know, you're. You're tumbling, you're turning. For a kid. You know, when I was a kid, I love rolling on the sofa. So I would like, if you ask me which one makes more sense, sitting on a kid's chair that has like a groove, you know what I'm saying? Like, it can really support them and put them in place so that their bottoms don't move all over the place. Of course, sitting on a chair is better. Okay. And sofa is not a great place for any type of training. Okay. Especially for oral motor stuff. And, you know, my stance about auto Motor. If you haven't checked out the video about oral motor, go search it and click on the channel. Watch it afterwards. You need a strong base that doesn't move in order to do meaningful work. The second thing that is the best tool for home therapy is yourself. Okay? Don't get me wrong. Yourself, you are the best toy. I am the best toy I have inside of my clinic. The reason why is because tools are tools. If I don't know how to play and don't know how to engage with children, no matter what you give me, it's not going to work. Right? The iPad, the phone, is a great tool, is a great toy, right? But why is it that when we give it. Give it to a child and just leave them there with. With it, there's no interaction at all and there's no learning? And if you give it to, like, a therapist, it becomes a learning tool? It's about you. It's not the toy. It's not about the gadgets. It's not about the flashcards that a lot of parents are asking me about. Like, oh, when I get this flashcard, like, where do I print this? Can. Can you send it to me? I don't mind paying for it. Just give it to me. I get it. I get it. I can. You can get all of these online, okay? I'm sure if you search it, you're going to get it. Okay? That's how we find it for our own clinic, right? But the thing is, you need to know how to use it. And before you even know how to use that toy or sell that toy or play with that toy, you need to be able to engage with your child. Okay? I remember a parent telling me, and it was my third client in Indonesia. I went to her house, and she was talking to me, and she was like, ming, I really want to hire you because I'm not that patient myself. I can't do it. I need a professional to do it. Who am I to help my child? I mean, she doesn't even like talking to me. And at that moment, I had to tell her, hey, if your child doesn't like talking to you, maybe you should change. Because down the line, I'm not going to be here forever. You know, therapists leave, right? I left my city, I came to a different country. I left behind some students. Same thing's gonna happen, you know, you cannot bank on one person staying with you forever. Whoever. You know, if you're watching this, you have a helper, you have a therapist, you have a teacher. You have like a tutor who helps your child, a nanny, whatever. You know, it's not going to be forever. Okay? You know that. You know, life gets in the way. People go away. It needs to be you. You know, you need to know how to do it. And if you really want to learn the basics of it, it's not like the techniques or whatever, it's the mindset and how to change yourself, you can go to agents of speech.com micro. Okay, there's a. There's a link in the description box below that I do talk about very seldom on this channel. It's online course for parents that is very important. You are a very good tool. Okay. Third. Third tool. This is substantial. This is not me talking about something else. Okay? It's a laminator. Okay. Laminators are very, very important actually. Laminator plus a printer. So you want to print out stuff. No matter if it's flashcards or, you know, story cards or chores or whatnot or like visual cues. Laminators are great. And the reason why you want to use a laminator, I mean, if you have a child, you must know why. Okay? You know, food gets on everywhere. You know, it gets wet all the time because maybe they're drooling, maybe the hands are wet, maybe they just wash their hands. They didn't wipe it. You know, a lot of things happen. You need to laminate. And sometimes for the clients who are on the spectrum and have violent tendencies, we even have to double laminate a piece of paper that we're using as a visual cue card. These things you have to bear in mind when you have a laminator and the printer, there's so much you can do. You can make so much teaching materials, you don't need to buy it. You can go online and, you know, join other parent communities from us as well downloadables and then you can print it out and use it. So if you like this video, let me know in the comments below. And, you know, you can tell me what you agree, disagree, whatever. You have questions, you can also put it there. And that's it for this video. Thank you for tuning in and I'll see you in the next video soon. Bye.
