Ming from Agents of Speech explains why child-led play therapy is hard for parents. The core challenge: balancing what the child wants to do, what you need to assess, and your therapy goals all at once. He describes "communication temptation," like putting a toy out of reach to prompt speech.
Naturalistic just means how much of the thing is the child's idea and who's taking the lead. So naturalistic is more child led. We roll on the floor with them, we play on the seesaw with them, whatever. We play with toys, we look at what the child likes and provide language models. And then the middle. Is that creating communication temptation? Communication temptation is when you tempt the child to say something, creating opportunities for a child to actually want to communicate with you, putting something on top of that a child cannot reach and create a communication opportunity. I've been through that. It's very difficult. Like you're trying to play with a kid whilst not trying to get them angry, whilst you're trying to push your own agenda. And the same time think about how to play with a toy, like a car that you can only roll and you have to think of 10 Ways to Play with it without imposing onto the child's wants and needs. That's hard. When you see someone who is able to do a naturalistic approach whilst doing assessment while giving a therapy, write down all data and stuff. Not a lot of people can do it in this world.
