Learning to ask for help is an important skill.

Once your child is able to ask for assistance when he/she needs it, his/her frustration and the frequently resulting tantrums are more likely to decrease.

There are many ways of how you can promote your child to ask for help, including:

• Model: every time your child takes your hand to pull you somewhere, PAUSE and clearly say “HELP”
• Longer Pause: Once your child is used to you MODELLING ‘help’, pause longer and hopefully your child may look in your direction and then say “help”. If your child doesn’t do so, don’t get discouraged…. just try again next time!
• Increase Expectations: increase your expectation for your child to vocalize any part of the word ‘help’. For example, this may be the start of the word “he” or the end “p”
• Encourage: when your child is able to make a sound then you can then encourage them to say ‘help’ more and more clearly.
• Short Phrase: Children who already have single words can be encouraged to add peers/adults name to form short phrases. For example, ‘Help Mummy’ or ‘Help please’
• Sign: Use the sign for help together with the visual symbol (shown below) Place your right hand into left hand – palms together. Move joined hands forward.

  REMEMBER:

  • If you allow your child to ‘pull you’ without prompting any language, they will continue to do this as they know that it works.
  • Consistency is the key … stick at it!
  • All visuals should ideally be accompanied by speech
  • Keep visuals in place even after your child has learnt to say ‘help’ if needed

  Written by Didem Karademir, Speech Pathologist.