Ming from Agents of Speech explains language facilitation for speech-delayed children. Stop demanding responses and give language input instead. Keep interactions low-pressure, limit direct attention demands to 10-15 minutes, and follow through on commands by completing the task and praising the child.
You should be always facilitating, but without all the demanding. Language facilitation is something that all parents, all caregivers, all therapists, all teachers should do. And what it is basically is to give instead of to get something out of the kid. When we're teaching a kid, we're always asking them for response, we're always wanting to get something from them. So none of that. In fact, we want to give instead. So it's refreshing for the kid to feel like, ah, finally, I'm not stressed anymore because mom and dad doesn't ask me and quiz me a lot. When you do that, it's easier for the child to absorb what you have to say. More time, time to think about it. And they might not use this now, but later down the line, it's a long term plan, is that you're planting seeds in them and teaching them words at that specific time. And you can do this throughout the day because it's not demanding at all. You're only demanding your child attention for 10 to 15 minutes. If you do give demands and commands, make sure that you finish those demands and commands. Like if you tell them to open the door and they don't, then they learn to ignore you. What you need to do is after instructing them, grab them by the hand and finish the task and then say, good job. That's it.
