Ming from Agents of Speech explains why speech practice at home stalls: your child either can't do it yet or doesn't want to. Repeating the same request doesn't work. Instead, break tasks into easier pieces, keep it playful, add rewards, and rebuild skills gradually so practice stays positive.
Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com I'm a speech therapist. Recently, I got a question from a parent who asked me about how to teach at home. She's a member of our online course, actually, and she told me that, oh, everything's going fine. My child is finally imitating what I say. But the thing is, you know, she's not trying her best. She's lazy, right? She's very lazy. She doesn't want to copy when I tell her to. And when I reviewed the videos and, you know, when I looked at how the parent did it, it's funny because if you keep on repeating the same thing over and over again, hoping your child would actually respond to you, that's just praying, okay? That's not effective teaching. For example, if I show you how to type very fast, right? And then I tell you, okay, do it now. And I keep on repeating, right? Because you can't do it. I just keep on telling you, type faster. Type faster now. Type faster now. Keep doing it. Do it now. Do as I do. Are you gonna be able to do it? No, obviously not, right? If you think about it, it sounds very, very simple, okay? But we do it all the time. I do it. Sometimes I have to catch myself when I record myself doing therapy is that sometimes we think that the child can actually do it, but he's just not responding, just doesn't want to do it, don't feel like it, being lazy, whatever. But you have to be careful here because what it really means if a child isn't responding to you on the first go is two things, as I always talk about on this channel. Number one, they cannot do it. It's an inability. Number two is that they don't want to do it. It's a motivational issue, right? So if you already have, you know, covered it with, like, enough motivation with rewards, as we always talk about, or maybe just, you know, praising and making sure that they understand why they have to do it, then it most probably is about their ability. When a kid can do something for one or two times, doesn't mean they can always do it. Let's say that you did a backflip into a swimming pool one time. It might be fluke, right? And if I tell her to do it again, there's a high chance that you can't do it the second time, right? So it's like that with the child. And to top it off, the mom was like, okay, how? And how. How come it's so hard for my child to Actually, like, do a vowel sound, right? We're teaching the child how to imitate sounds out, right? So it's just a simple vowel sound. How come she cannot get it correct? And I. I told her that, hey, this is actually hard for a child because they haven't been imitating you for, you know, the whole of their life, which is like two or three years. And suddenly you teach her or him that, hey, you gotta listen to me, you gotta focus, and you have to copy whatever I say. Of course, there will be times where the sound will be off, right? Sometimes that it's so hard they don't want to do it anymore. So whenever you repeat yourself when they not doing it, it's not helping them at all. And therefore, it becomes. It becomes bitter. It becomes bitter therapy, right? It becomes. It's not playing anymore. You're forcing your child to keep on doing it because you think they can do it. And realistically speaking, yes, they can with a good amount of help, right? When you see your child isn't smiling anymore when they're playing with you, when they're learning with you, when you're doing therapy or just teaching with them, it means that you are pushing too hard. Don't push them too hard, or else it's very hard for you to come back the next day and continue to work. When the relationship becomes something like you're drilling them too much, then it's too hard for them, all right? And then even if you pair it with the best rewards there are in the world, you won't be able to make them do the things you want them to do. So start off with something easier. That's what I always say. If you keep on repeating the same task over and over, it might be too hard. And what you want to do now is to decrease. Decrease it. Let's say that you're teaching the word ball, for instance, right? If they cannot say the word ball, then, you know, just go. Go with something that's easier, right? Maybe a sound that maybe it's just all. Or just ba. Or doesn't matter if that still doesn't work, okay? Just tell them to do the gesture so that they can play with the ball already, right? It doesn't matter as long as they do something, then it helps you to build that relationship with them further and so that you can do harder things in the future, okay? So with that said, thank you so much for watching this video. It's just a short answer that I wanted to share with all the par who are actually trying to do this at home during this quarantine. And if you want to, you can go to agentsofspeech.com checklist, grab a list of tools and toys that I recommend parents to get when they're doing home therapy at home. That was redundant. Anyways, so if you have any questions, do put them in the comment section below. Please tell me what kind of questions you have. This is why I make videos so that I can share the answers to everyone else who are seeking for answers. Okay? So thank you so much. I'll see you in the next video very soon. Bye bye.
