Eye contact is something that parents comment on all the time. When a child isn’t looking, it doesn’t automatically mean that s/he is being impolite, not focusing or being naughty.

Before we dive in, I want to let you know that we do not recommend teaching eye contact separately, nor should it be a goal unless eye contact is needed to teach other skills that require the child to look carefully (such as speech sounds). And we would only teach this if and only if, this is the biggest obstacle in your child’s communication right now. Watch our previous video about eye contact here: https://youtu.be/GzB4s9HTpKA

There are a few DON’T DOs - 1. Pushing your child’s face towards you - this doesn’t cue his eyes at all, you’re just pushing his neck towards your direction. 2. Do not keep repeating “look” whilst calling his name. Again, this does not work and will only result in frustration and annoyance. 

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Speech Delay or actually, language delay or disorder as we call it. It is something that all parents dread to hear.

If you're finding this video for answers, then there are 3 signs that you can look out for

1. Lack of vocabulary, not enough words, and sentences produced. Basically, your child doesn't speak as much as s/he should be right now. When compared to his peers, there is a marked difference in production.

By the age of 2, children should be able to speak 2-word sentences even if the grammar is wrong. And at 4-5 years of age, children should be able to tell adults what happened at school and tell a simple story. If your child cannot do this, there is a risk of language delay/disorder.

2. He does not understand your questions. When your child ignores, repeats, or gives you a blank look when you ask a question. It means that he probably doesn't understand the question.

By the age of 3 children should already be able to answer "who" and "where" questions, such as "who is...

Is your child constantly asking for your phone just to watch YouTube videos and play games? If the answer is yes, then this video is for you.

I love using the smartphone for therapy, in fact, we use it for a tool that helped some of our clients to start communicating and get off the iPhone addiction.

Here are 3 tips that can help you.

1. A no is a no. No matter how your child begs, screams, and asks for a phone. Once you've said "no", it means no. So be careful when you do say no. Because you need to be a woman/man of your own word and stick to your decision.

2. Bargain and ask your child to do something before letting him have it. You can ask your child to do a simple task that is within his ability. For some children, it might be colouring in something, following a song, play some toys or speech exercises. Let him know that the phone isn't something that can be begged for, it is not free and certainly requires work to get it.

3. Start teaching your child how to play with toys and...

The most common question and concern we get at the clinic is this: “my child has a lack of focus”. The question you should ask yourself is, can your child actually focus on watching videos that s/he likes? If the answer is yes, then the issue is not in focusing, but in choosing what to focus on.

Not enough explanation

When a speech and language delayed child does not understand why and how something must be done. The lack of focus will be apparent because there really isn’t a reason to do it and also they do not know how to do it. That’s why you should take more time to actually explain by both showing and telling about things you want your child to do. For example, how to play a new toy or the appropriate way to do different things around the house.

Not enough incentive

Whilst not everything can be explained and can be fun. The next thing that you have to do is to give rewards. Imagine that your child is an employee at your company. Whilst...

If you're struggling at home with activities, the video above is for you. We go live on our YouTube Channel and Facebook page every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9 AM WIB (Jakarta time). 

To summarize what we've talked about - basically, it comes down to if you can create anticipation. And to teach your child to start communicating with you no matter the method that he is using. 

Many parents opt to teach their children to talk when it comes to playing. The reality is, language and speech come after your child understands the routine and context. To put it simply, your child isn't using words to communicate in play MOST because he doesn't understand enough to anticipate what comes next (unless it's actually a speech problem, not a language problem).

Let's talk about certain routines that you can use right now without any toys.

Tickling 02:41 - 18:40 (on Youtube Live)

This is one of the best ways to create a good rapport between you and your child.  If...

Speaking to children who don’t respond is really frustrating. Every effort seems wasted and the more you do it, the more they ignore… So what’s the best way to do it?

Speak slower

First of all, if you’re not sick of hearing this from me already, speak slower! There’s a reason why your child isn’t responding, copying, or doing what you tell him. Probably, it’s too difficult to understand, so slow down. Especially us Asians, we tend to speak faster than we should. Making it incredibly difficult for anyone to actually understand what we’re saying if we don’t speak the language.

Simplify your language

What would you do if a tourist who didn’t understand your language talked to you? You’d decide to simplify what we say. Do NOT take your child’s comprehension for granted. Without an assessment from a speech therapist, you’d never know how much he can actually understand!

A good rule of thumb is to stick...

1. Prevent it from happening

Are there any precursors to throwing? You gotta observe and see what are the things that happen before the throwing happens. 9 times out of 10, there will be some signs before your child actually decides to throw something on the floor. Look for it, so that you can actually prevent your child from doing it!

Keep your hand on high-risk items. Are there specific things that your child would throw in a heart-beat or have a history of throwing? Do not let you hand off those items, because you'd be asking for it... Ask a family member to look after it if you're busy.

Behaviour is reinforced every time it’s done. Remember that for every time your child gets to do something, the chance of your child repeating that action would actually increase. So prevent at all costs, because it'll help the behaviour die off.

2. Find out why?

Is there a lack of play skills? If your child loves throwing, it might be because he/she thinks it's fun... We've observed that...

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Why do parents care about eye contact?

A lack of eye gaze or eye contact is an early signal for Autism. However, that doesn’t mean it's a cause-effect relationship, a lack of eye contact is actually just a symptom. Just as if you have a fever it can be because of different reasons. 

Why is eye contact important?

Eye-gaze is a prelinguistic skill. These are skills that children have to acquire before they can actually speak, use speech and language to communicate with us. It’s important that children will look at us because that is actually a way of signaling that they are listening and a way for them to gain social information from our facial expressions.

Eye contact can help children acquire skills faster. There are skills such as speech that require your child to actually look at your face to learn. With an added visual...

Get your questions answered - watch answers to frequently asked questions for FREE → https://www.agentsofspeech.com/faq

This is one of the most important videos that we've made so far. Increasing sentence length is no joke and speech and language delayed children tend to be stuck at certain stages. And one of those stages is actually the 1-word stage.

Parents are very happy to know that their child can actually speak, however, discouraged because their child is so comfortable just saying one word at a time - because it's actually quite functional.

Enter Gestures.

Yes, gestures are the best way to teach longer sentences in my opinion. And it's backed scientifically. Check out this easy to digest summary paper from ASHA: https://leader.pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/leader.RIB1.19112014.14
and the full academic paper here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2013.0295#

Gestures help children acquire the meaning of the word before mastering how to say it. It also...

This is MIng from AgentsOfSpeech.com, this is the last video for doing speech therapy at home. As promised, we will be diving into what language facilitation is, and how you can do it yourself at home.

Most of what I say today will be inside the book “it takes two to talk” from the Hanen Program - which I highly recommend you getting a copy and reading it for yourself. I will also do another video on a review and summary of said book. https://www.amazon.com/Takes-Two-Talk...

Although the book is super easy to understand and digest, what we’ll talk about in this video should be enough for you to understand how to do these things at home.

If you’ve watched my previous videos about how not to annoy your child. You’ll know I love talking about speaking to your child in the most engaging way. And that doesn’t mean you have to be entertaining, jumping around, or acting like a clown. All you need to do is to be observant about what your child wants and...