Ming from Agents of Speech explains why some children only speak to request things, and how to expand that. She breaks down language functions beyond requesting: greeting, asking questions, negation. Some kids express these nonverbally through tantrums or gestures. Start by writing down which functions your child already uses.
How do we get beyond need based language? This is when the child says, I want whatever, give me a whatever. And they only use those words. How do we get through that? So first of all, you have to identify what language functions there are. What are they using language for? The language that they're using right now is what we call requesting or what we call manding in ABA settings. But it's just basically the same thing. When they want something, they ask for you, right? How to teach a child to have a conversation with you. It's all about the relationship and so on. So let's deep dive into that a little bit more. So language functions, there's greeting, like having a greeting, asking questions, answering questions, negation, like saying no to stuff. It might be coming from a form of throwing a tantrum. So the list goes on and on. I want you to think about what language functions your child has. And these language functions, they might not come out as using speech. It might be using like tantrums, gestures, eye contact, think about those, Write it out. Okay? That's the first step. Identify what language functions your child's, your child already has.
