Why wait?

 

Many times, parents that I help are concerned that their kids are not speaking, or are not speaking in sentences that are understandable enough to get their needs met. Let me stop right here and say, I am not a speech therapist. I have worked with many great speech therapists and speech therapy assistants over the years and learned a lot from them, but when there is a speech concern for any of my kiddos, I call in the experts. That is their field. That being said, I do work on language during play with kiddos. Especially social language. We also work on language to get needs met such as either using signs, or words like "help" "want" "more" "all done" etc. Using language during play, talking about what children are doing is something that comes natural to me, but doesn't always come natural to everyone else. And I am also a talker when playing with children, so when I learned about expectant wait times, it was something new to me too. 

Expectant waiting is when you say something to the child (or person you are talking to) and give them time to process the information and respond. This can take any amount of time you feel the child may need but usually we start with about 10 seconds which when you think about it seems like nothing, but when you put it into practice feels like a really long time! And when you have parents that are also talkers (which is nothing bad at all! As I am a talker as well, and exposing a child to language is always a good thing!) having them slow down and wait for a child to process the information that they have given, and answer a question or respond to a command, can be difficult at first. I know it was a little hard for me at first too! 

Children who have any kind of speech delay, receptive or expressive, or are hard of hearing, will especially need wait time to process information or questions that you ask of them. When we ask questions of our younger children, I like to try to phrase it in smaller bites "you want milk?" "give me ball." "go get doll." while they are still working on learning to answer questions or follow directions. Then as they get better responding to these directives, start to expand the language. "Do you want your ball?" "Go get your doll." "Give me your blue block." Starting with longer requests can work, but if they are getting frustrated because they don't understand or are having a harder time processing too many words, breaking them down in to smaller chunks may help them have an easier time processing and giving an answer or responding to your request. And giving the time they need, even if it feels like a really long time for you, will help your child have decreased frustration levels and everyone will be happier as your child learns to express themselves and get their wants and needs met. 

*Again, these are things that have worked for me as a Developmental Therapist, having worked in EI for 8 years. I have worked alongside many great speech therapists, and speech therapy assistants, but always refer my kids to speech therapists when there is a speech concern.