Ming (Agents of Speech) explains that some children lack the intention to communicate with others because they find more reinforcement from solitary activities (videos, songs, play). Therapies often focus only on 'manding' (requesting) because requests carry high communicative intent; Ming urges expanding communicative functions (e.g., play, routines) to increase a child's intention to talk beyond requesting.
The lack of communication intention. What does that mean? The child doesn't have so much of intention to talk to us, doesn't understand why there's no fun. He gets a lot more fun from watching videos, listening to songs or playing by themselves. Therefore, there's no intention to communicate other than requesting. So for requesting, which is a lot of therapists, parents, doctors, they call it manding. So demanding, like M A N D mand is to ask for. And a lot of therapy is stuck at Manding only. And the reason is because the communication intention for manding is high. Because if I want something, I'm going to make my voice heard. That's the thing about it. You have to expand different communicative functions other than for entertainment. Now we have taught manding. When they're manding, can we find other functions that will increase their intention to talk to us, no matter if it's like playing with us, a routine that they engage in. These are all very valid communication functions. Because there's a lack of communication intention. It creates that they don't use the words. It's as simple as that.
