The one thing that I feel is most important before you try any therapy techniques as a parent is actually the mindset going into it. Yes, on this channel we discuss loads of tricks, tactics, and strategies. But you won't get far without the correct mentality of teaching speech delayed children.

The thing we have to remember is: be selfless. We forget that the child did not ask to be delayed or to be diagnosed. Rather, delayed children are pretty happy in their own world. Most of what we think they should do is from our own desire as to how they should become in the future. Obviously, this holds true for all parents and children.

Don't get me wrong, our standards are important. It's important that a child learns to read, write, and speak properly. It's also important to get into a school and have friends. But be careful, these are your desires, not the child. Think from the child's perspective - so that you can teach your child to speak in order to get what they want.

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Teaching your child alone at home can be frustrating. Especially you come back from speech therapy where your little one plays really nicely with the therapist. But when you get home, you try the same techniques, it just doesn't work!

Well, most of the time it's because you and your child don't understand what's going on. And I've actually been having trouble teaching parents exactly how to replicate results, so we decided to create this video to further explain what's going on. So this really is the therapist's fault, hopefully, this will clear up some of the issues you are having right now.

First of all, to start playing, you have to create a routine. What that means is that there are rules and a sequence to how you play. We recommend using toy foods as our checklist recommends. If you haven't, get it here: https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist.

Now you have to choose some tools to use when playing with toy foods and a cook set. I like to use a brush, knife, tissue, and maybe...

 It's always frustrating when you repeat a million times and your child just won't copy what you say. And whenever this happens, it usually is due to these certain problems that you need to troubleshoot as a parent.

Firstly, your expectations need to be realistic. You might be setting goals that are unobtainable by your child. When faced with challenges that are too difficult, everyone gives up. That's why you have to be realistic about what your child can and cannot do.

Once you understand that your expectations cannot be too high and accept the fact that if your child was able to learn quickly by themselves you wouldn't be searching about it online. Then the next step is to realize we have to help your child by "scaffolding".

In the realm of learning and education, the term scaffolding means to provide support and teach things that will build up towards the ultimate goal. It needs to be attainable and you need to help your child do it as much as you can.

That's why we...

In this video, we will be talking about how to do speech therapy at home with children from ages 4 to 6. Firstly, if your child is 4-6 years old but hasn't begun to communicate with you. Check out the previous parts about speech therapy at home for 3-year-olds - the methods still work.

Why in this series we aren't going to talk about primary school-aged children, is because they are old enough for teletherapy to become the major method for their therapy needs. Obviously, as a parent, you still have to follow through with the home practice the therapist has given you. But you can at least be somewhat sure that the child can sit in front of a monitor to learn virtually - just as his/her other subjects.

To teach 4-6-year-olds, we need to start using more toys. And when we say toys, we mean using board games that have clear rules. We need to teach the game rules so that we can use the context to create a need to communicate.

Some examples of games we use are Uno, Funny Bunny, Jenga,...

Speech therapy for 3 year-olds is where the fun begins, at least for me. We get to finally guide children towards the chair and play on the table. Whilst we can still teach children to request, we can do it much more systematically as opposed to the chaos teaching on a mat as we do with 2 year-olds.

Sitting your child down - remember, use snacks, in the beginning, to reward any good behaviour (e.g. walking towards the chair, sitting down, staying on the seat) to help establish what we want the child to do.

Once sat down, you would need to find a snack or a toy that you can do continuously to build a routine. What this means is to use small pieces of snacks, or toys like a puzzle that has multiple pieces to put inside of a transparent container. So that your child now has to keep on asking for more in order to continue playing / eating.

It really is up to you about what kind of routine you want to establish. But the more times you repeat a routine with a child, the more likely...

Speech therapy for 2 year-olds is typically the hardest to engage. Because they have really short attention spans and require a lot of play on the floor. Remember 5-10 minutes to start off with, and start teaching your 2-year-old at home to start communicating with you. Realized that during the first month, your child will not use speech consistently. Rather, we're teaching your child to communicate through eye contact, gestures, and actions. We'd always love to start off with bubbles. You can create a routine so that your child knows exactly what's going to happen next and anticipate your actions. So by coming to you, looking at you and copying your gestures, your child can communicate with you so that you continue to play with him/her. Remember, your child doesn't owe you anything. If he/she doesn't want to play with you. Then it's actually your problem! So be resourceful and think of ways to play in ways that he/she cannot him/herself... Like spinning a ball really quickly,...

When you're first trying out DIY therapy at home. Whether you and your child are already seeing a qualified speech therapy or not, it becomes quite confusing as to what you should do.

At Agents of Speech, we always recommend to start off with 5-10 minutes every day. What we love teaching is structured tasks, meaning there is a rigid structure to how you teach your delayed child at home.

The first structured task that we will teach is requesting. Because you must have something your child wants in order for him/her to want to communicate with you.

You should use a container and put pieces of snacks inside so that you can do it multiple times until your child can actually do it him/herself. The more time you do it, the faster your child will learn and be able to communicate spontaneously.

Communication can come in the form of gestures (sign language), sounds, or words. It depends which is easier for your child right now, but we strongly recommend starting off with gestures simply...

Most of my clients cannot last for 1 month doing home therapy. And that’s because it hasn’t become a habit yet. As a parent, it’s quite easy to become reactive to situations like one of the kids spilled something, another cries for help and the youngest one needs the diaper changed. A parent living in a household with children, things can get hectic very fast.

That’s why in this video, I’ll talk about creating a routine for you and your speech and language delayed child to sit down and interact for a good 5-10 minutes every day.

First of all, the table or mat needs to be in a designated area in your house/apartment. Wherever you use that area, it means you’re playing and teaching your child. Secondly, choose a time that you can have an undisturbed time with your little one. I find that just before bedtime is a good idea, most of my clients report that this timing works the best for everyone.

Creating a habit takes time, and usually, it takes...

Starting home therapy without a therapist is always a challenge. Keeping up with a speech and language delayed child is already very difficult, to start teaching and acting as a therapist at home creates chaos in both you and your child’s lives.

So this is a video series about how to do speech therapy at home. It’s a simple series to get you up to speed with quick wins so that you feel it actually can be done! We recommend starting off with 5-10 minutes a day in the beginning.

In this video, we’ll be talking about what you need at home to succeed. Because I’m a big fan of sitting down and playing. I would strongly recommend a play mat for children below 2 and 9 months and a children’s table for any children above that.

The reason why children work better on the floor when they’re young is that it’s actually quite tiring sitting with their legs dangling. So make sure their feet can touch the floor if you’re...

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

A tested method that teaches children to behave even if they are delayed

If you’re dealing with a lot of bad behaviour at home. This information is for you. We will be talking about what works 100% of the time. Not only to children with speech and language delay, autism and ADHD. We’re talking about a strategy that works on adults in Canada. Of course, we’re going to back it up with a story.

Why should you ignore bad behaviour?

Whenever your child throws a tantrum or does something naughty. There must be a reason behind it. In this video, we won’t talk about this subject matter. But actually, if you pay attention to bad behaviour, you might actually accidentally fulfill the reason why your child was causing a ruckus!

By ignoring your child. You do not have to take the risk. It also breaks the pattern of the...