Did you know it takes small children at least 8 seconds to process a request and then figure out how to respond?  Brooke Newberry, one of our fabulous presenters last week at the Youth Services/SLP workshop, reminded us of this important fact.  She also helped us think about what that means for interacting with children and caregivers!

• It’s a good thing to remind caregivers of this cool fact.  If you continue to give a person a request (“Say bye-bye!”) without giving them time to process the request and act on it, each new request re-sets their brain and they have to start all over again with processing! It’s important to allow kids time to respond before assuming they don’t have a response.
• During story time, Brooke says she sometimes asks all the grown-ups in the room to hold their answers to questions (like “What does a cow say?”) and she waits for 8 (sometimes awkward) seconds for the children in the room to be ready to answer.
• Some kids take even longer than 8 seconds, and kids who have sensory processing issues continue to take longer to process a request as they get older.