Here is a small experiment. Ask your child something, then count silently to five before you do anything else. No repeating the question. No rephrasing it. No pointing helpfully at the board.
Most adults cannot do it. Two seconds in, the silence starts to feel like failure, and we fill it.
What the silence is actually for
A child answering on a symbol board is doing something in sequence that speech does in parallel. Hear the question. Decide on an answer. Find the word. Plan the movement. Move the hand. Any one of those steps can be slow, and for a child with motor differences several of them are.
Five seconds is not a long time to do all that. It is only long for the person waiting.
When we fill the gap, three things happen at once. The child loses their place and starts over. They learn that if they wait long enough, the adult will solve it for them. And the next question arrives before the last one was finished, so the whole conversation runs at our speed instead of theirs.
How to actually do it
- Count on your fingers, behind your back. It sounds silly and it works, because it gives the impatient part of your brain a job.
- Look pleasant and expectant, not intense. Staring is pressure. Looking away entirely reads as "never mind."
- Keep your hands off the board. Pointing at the answer is not a hint. It is the answer.
- If nothing comes, model instead of prompting. Tap a word yourself, say it, and move on. No quiz, no correction.
Ten seconds is not unreasonable for a child who is new to a board, or tired, or in a loud room. Speech therapists routinely wait far longer than parents expect, and it is one of the fastest things to copy from watching a session.
Try this week
One meal a day, count to five in your head after anything you say to your child. Just one meal. Notice how often you would have jumped in at two.