The speech therapist can’t make your child talk.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Similarly, you can (perhaps) make your child go to the toilet but you don’t actually make him use the toilet, do you?
So, what can the speech therapist do?
How do you actually toilet-train your child (since you don’t actually make her use the toilet)?
What parents usually do is to create situations which make it likely that the child will need to use the toilet (e.g. give the child food/liquid). They watch for times when the child actually wants to go, show the child where to go and what to do, and then reinforce the habit (with praise or punishment).
Using the above analogy, the speech therapist aims to show you how to do the same with speech/language training because:
- Parents may deprive their children opportunities to communicate, instead of creating situations which will increase opportunities for communication.
- Parents may not recognize pre-requisites or less mature attempts at communication, instead of recognizing potential learning situations and rewarding present attempts as stepping stones to more mature behaviours.
- Parents may teach their child, but do it at a level that is too difficult for a child, instead of providing the right amount of stimulation at the right level for their child.
- Speech and language come so naturally to adults that parents may not know how to begin at the basics to explain it or teach it.
- Parents may not have enough alternative strategies to be flexible and adaptable to possible setbacks.
Last but not least, parents sometimes hit on the right technique but lack the experience and confidence to be patient and persevere with it long enough to see improvement.
It’s not just what you say that matters; how you say it also affects how much your child learns from your ‘input’ or attempts at teaching. The younger your child is or the more delayed she is, the more you need to bear this in mind.
Your speech therapist will demonstrate and explain the above as applicable to your child.
Please feel free to clarify and discuss with your speech therapist the whys and hows of the way you interact with the child. It can only be to everyone’s benefit, particularly for your child.