Does your child communicate with you by grabbing your hand and pulling you towards the playground? Is it by crying, shouting, asking, pointing or smiling? The ideas below should encourage your child to communicate. Remember, it’s important to know your child’s tolerance levels and not to make them distressed. The aim is for your child to become an active communication partner who can initiate communication, make requests, protest or negate an idea, agree and confirm.
TEMPT, WAIT, REWARD
– Provide a short, controlled experience (eg. bubbles, a nursery rhyme), then stop suddenly. Wait a short time for your child to signal for ‘more’, then continue. If he gives no response while waiting, then prompt/model with a single word or full sentence, depending on his age.
– Give one small piece of a treat. Wait for a response before giving more. If she doesn’t use appropriate language, model the “May I have….” question.
MAKE ITEMS INACCESSIBLE
– Position desired items somewhere easily seen but out of reach. Wait a pre-determined length of time before prompting/modelling.
– Place favourite items on a top shelf.
– Provide a food item but don’t remove the wrapper, eg. chocolate bar, icy-pole.
– Give the desired item in a plastic jar with the lid firmly screwed on.
BE FORGETFUL
– Interrupt a very familiar routine or activity by removing or not providing an item necessary for completion of the task. It’s important to wait the pre-determined time before prompting.
– Tell your child her drink is ready but give her an empty cup.
– Tell her it’s bath-time but have no water in the tub or take her towel away while she’s washing!
– Ask your child to draw a picture but give blunt pencils or don’t give him any paper.
– Serve dinner to all but one person.
– Give a favourite battery-operated toy or the remote control with no batteries.
– Ask your child to do a household chore that he’s just done.
This last group of strategies is particularly useful for modelling negation: ‘No’, ‘not’ and ‘don’t are essential concepts when trying to communicate needs and wants.
Call Box Hill Speech Pathology Clinic on 9899 5494 to determine what type of utterance should be modelled or targeted for your child. We can also provide you with sentence/picture strips to prompt your child’s communication.
Content by Vicky Andrews and Genevieve Callister
Editing by Nicola Anglin (Speech Pathologist)
