What if a child won’t engage             in therapy?

Reduced engagement in therapy often reflects a mismatch between task demands and the child’s current motor speech capacity.

When a child is not engaging, I first consider the motor demands of the task.

Children with CAS are often being asked to do something that is genuinely difficult for their speech system. If the task is not matched to their current capacity, disengagement is a logical response.

In these situations, I typically:

• reduce the motor demand

• adjust the syllable structure

• accept approximations

• embed targets within play

In my experience, engagement improves when the child experiences success. Therapy should feel achievable, not effortful to the point of frustration.