Make your child talk
Stimulate your child to say his/her first word
Evil spirits can always prevent or distract your child from learning to speak. However, your child may still have learned some words from you.
Evil spirits can also constantly suppress your child’s desire to speak. Furthermore, evil spirits can defeat your child’s confidence, and trick your child into believing that he/she simply cannot speak. Consequently, it is a milestone for your child to say his/her first word, and gain the confidence that he/she actually can speak.
To stimulate your child to say his/her first word, make your child so excited that he/she wants to shout out loud and use words to express himself/herself. You probably know what can make your child so excited. However, please avoid using video games due to their long-term significant damage on eyesight and the central nervous system. When your child is extremely excited, he/she can burst out a word suddenly. Both you and your child may be surprised that he/she actually can talk. This will give you and your child the much-needed confidence to continue to learn and develop his/her speech.
Motivate your child to speak with basic needs
Do not give your child water before he/she gets thirsty.
Do not feed your child before he/she gets hungry.
For example, do not feed a newborn baby every 2-3 hours day and night, as taught in some official childcare books. When your baby is hungry, he/she will cry. Give your baby the opportunities to express his/her basic needs and make efforts to meet his/her basic needs. You and your baby can also get some seriously needed sleep, especially at night.
When your baby turns a toddler, teach him/her the names of common food and drinks. Then always insist that your child must say the name of the food or drink before taking it.
Free your child’s mind
Free your child’s mind. Free your child’s time, attention, and energy. Completely cut off your child’s video games and social media. Limit your child’s exposure to a few good educational apps, websites, and books. Make your child extremely bored. Then your child will want to talk to you and other people.
Encourage Your Child to Talk More
Carefully and patiently listen to what your child wants to say.
Give your child plenty of time to express himself/herself.
Do not always correct or improve your child’s speech. Give your child more confidence first. Correct or improve your child’s speech occasionally when your child is confident and happy.
Start some small talks with your child. For example:
- Ask your child if it took long for him/her to fall asleep last night.
- Ask your child if he/she had a good sleep last night.
- Ask your child what he/she wants to eat or drink.
- Ask your child how he/she likes his/her food.
- Ask your child what sports he/she played at PE class today.
- Ask your child what he/she learned in LA/Math/Science class today.
- Ask your child how he/she likes his/her teachers/classmates/school.
Give your child a cool real microphone (about $30) to encourage him/her to talk and sing.
Give your child a younger sibling
Give your child a younger sibling, either by birth or by adoption.
When your child has a younger sibling, they can play together and talk to each other for almost 12 hours every day. If you are a stay-at-home mother, count how many hours you actually play and talk with your child. After deducting all the time for cooking, cleaning, shower, laundry, transit, shopping, etc., you will be short for several hours every day. Obviously, your child will make serious progress when he/she gets several more hours of speech and social time every day.
In addition, compared to parents, your child will learn a lot more speech from siblings. Adult speech is usually complex. So your child can easily be overwhelmed and discouraged from imitating your speech. With the Autism diagnosis in mind, you can also speak to your child in an overly simplified manner. This does not motivate your child to make progress in his/her speech. However, these serious problems do not exist with siblings. Children can hardly modify their speech to accommodate your child. Therefore, they will push and demand your child to speak like a normal child. Due to peer competition, your child will make great efforts to catch up with his/her younger sibling’s speech. As the younger sibling makes progress in speech, your child will be motivated to catch up and keep improving his/her speech too. You may find that your child’s speech level is always similar to that of his/her younger sibling. Consequently, this will be more effective than you train your child’s speech for several hours every day. You do not have to quit your job or sacrifice your personal life anymore.
Send your child to a normal daycare center
If your child really cannot have a younger sibling, find some alternatives to ensure that your child can play and talk with peers for several hours every day. For example, can your child play with the children in the neighborhood for several hours every day? If not, you may need to send your child to a normal daycare center.
You may worry that your child will be recognized with special needs, and therefore he/she cannot stay in a normal daycare center. To solve this problem, please refer to “3-month challenge: put your child in a normal daycare center or normal school”.
