Since children learn through play, it is no surprise that Speech-Language Pathologists use play to target speech and language with the young ones. As parents, the best way to help your children develop and grow is to play with them. This may sound easy but sometimes it is not always obvious how to use toys to stimulate language and speech specifically. That is why I want to share some tips with you about play and different ways you can target language and speech with your children’s toys.
First off, make sure that you have toys appropriate for your child’s age. You can look back at my post about pre-linguistic development and play skills for more information about age-appropriate toys.
One important thing to keep in mind is to make communication functional. This means that it should be natural and your child should learn to communicate to meet his/her needs and wants. It is important that they know to name things however we want to move past that and teach our child to use words to communicate meaning. For example, if your child starts to label things “apple, cup, ball” then you want to make his/her communication functional by expanding it to “eat apple, I want cup, give me ball.” Your children will start to understand that words are used to express something and convey meaning through play.
Cause and effect toys
The Caterpillar (or Inchworm)
This is a push and go (cause and effect) toy. It is called the Press-N-Go Inchworm but I refer to it as the caterpillar for my kiddos. It is a great toy because its cause and effect is simple and can be used at different stages of your child’s growth. Remember to adjust your language for their age, if your child does not yet speak or says single words then use simple phrases (1-3 words). Here are some ways that you can use this toy and other similar cause/effect toys:
You can control the play by holding the caterpillar and doing the action. You can say “push” or “push down” then push down the caterpillar and hold it. Then when you have the attention of your child, you can say “Go!” and release the caterpillar. You can then request your child to get the caterpillar by saying “catch the caterpillar”, “get the caterpillar”, “bring me caterpillar” or “give me caterpillar.” My personal favorite would be to say “give me caterpillar” while extending my hand so that it’s clear that I am asking the child to get the caterpillar and bring it to me.
You can give the child the caterpillar and see if they can follow simple commands. For example, you can say “push down” and see if your child pushes down. You may have to help them and push down the caterpillar by taking your child’s hands and doing it. Then you can say “go” and help your child release their hands off the toy to make the caterpillar go.
You can use a routine phrase “ready set go” before you or your child let the caterpillar go. Then after a few repetitions say “ready, set” and pause to see if your child fills in the phrase and says go. If you are in control of the caterpillar then don’t let it go until your child says go. If they don’t talk yet then wait until they make eye contact and then you say “go” and release the caterpillar. Also, your child may not say “go” but might vocalize something else. For example, you say “ready, set” and your child says “ah” then you should let the caterpillar go immediately. If your child vocalizes then that demonstrates that he/she tried to request “go” but they might not have the speech or language skills yet to say “go” so they vocalize something else. This is still good practice for intentional communication.
You can also have the child request you to push the caterpillar down. Place your hands on top of the caterpillar and wait for your child to look at you. You can then say “push” and wait to see if your child imitates you. Keep your hands there and repeat “push” up to 2 or 3 times. If your child vocalizes anything then push the caterpillar down right away and let it go. If your child did not vocalize by the second/third try then just say “push” and let the caterpillar go. Even if he/she did not communicate it is okay. By having your child at least attend to the object with you, you are working on his/her joint attention skills and able to model the language.
The caterpillar also has wheels with beads in them and can be used as a rattle. You can grab it and shake it to make sound, which is another cause and effect feature. Once again you can give it to your child and say “shake” and help them hand over hand to shake the caterpillar. Then you can take it away and say “do you want more?” Once your child makes eye contact or vocalizes anything for “more” then start to shake the caterpillar again.
You could also use this toy with your older child (18-36m) and use it to target location. For example, you can ask “where did the caterpillar go?” or “where is the caterpillar?” You can play find the caterpillar. You can push the caterpillar and make it go in the kitchen, bathroom, under the couch, behind the chair, on the table, and so on. This is a great way to target prepositions and locations. You can have your child work on target phrases such as “I found it” or “I see it.”
Turn-taking (for 18-36m). Before a turn ask “who’s turn?” and have your child practice “my turn, your turn” with support.
You can name your caterpillar a simple name like bobby, nano, or mini. Your child can then practice saying “push mini”,”go mini”, and/or “give me mini.” By coming up with a simple name with those early developmental sounds you can help your child practice speech sounds that are produced with their lips (e.g. b, p, m).
These activity tips can be done in either language. If you are multilingual you can choose which language you want to use in play with the caterpillar. Just remember to be consistent, if you start in Spanish then use Spanish the entire time. If you decide to play with the caterpillar again another day but want to do it in English then that is ok too. Sometimes it helps children if you let them know beforehand what language you want to use. For example, telling your child “vamos jugar” before you go play or “vamos hablar Español”. If your child is used to playing with the caterpillar in English then he might use English words “push, go”, which is fine. Just remember to model the words in Spanish. For example, if you place your hands on the caterpillar and your child says “push” then you can say “empuje” before you push. After a few repetitions, your child might try to imitate you and verbalize “empuje” or something close to that word instead of “push”.
This is another great cause and effect toy. This is usually a child favorite and very popular among the kiddos I see. The toy has a red lever that you can push down which propels the balls up with the help of a fan. There is also some fun music that plays while the balls pop out. It can be a little noisy so be mindful of how long your child plays with this toy. Here are some ways you can use this toy:
You can take control by taking the toy and modeling the toy’s function. Before you push the lever say “push” and look at your child, wait for them to look at you and push the lever. The balls will then pop out and you can model the words “pop”, “out”, and/or “ball” or combinations “pop out”, “pop ball”, and/or “ball out.” After a few repetitions, say “push” and wait to see if your child imitates the word push. As soon as they vocalize something that shows their intent for you to push the lever, do so.
Sometimes the ball floats in mid-air and you can try to catch it. You can then say “catch the ball” and demonstrate the action for your child and help them do it if they are unable to. You can also discuss some of the colors by saying “catch blue ball/red ball.”
Instead of “push” you can also use the phrase “ready set go” with a pause after “set” to let your child try and fill in the missing word – go.
For older children you can take turns and work on “my turn/your turn” as previously mentioned or “I push/you push.”
Many times the balls will pop out fast and go all over the place. This is your chance to have your child follow directions by getting the colored ball you want. It will be hard to do if your child does not know their colors so be mindful of what your child knows. If your child does not know her/his colors then simply ask them to get all the balls with the direction “pick up the balls” then you can ask them to “put ball in”. You might have to model the action for your child first or help them do it before they can do it on their own. Remember repetition is key – by saying “put in” each time you put in a ball you are helping your child develop those early speech sounds /p, t, n/. If your child is talking and able to imitate then have them say “put”, “in”, “put in” “ball in” and/or “put ball in” depending on their age/language abilities.
You can teach your child the colors by taking all the balls out and teaching them red ball, blue ball, and/or yellow ball. This will help expand their expressive language to include a modifier (color) with a noun (ball). Then you can ask your child to do different tasks – for example “give me the red ball”, “pick up the blue ball”, “get the yellow ball”, “put the red ball in”, and/or “catch the green ball.” On a side note, when teaching colors to your child, you always want to pair the color with a noun (e.g. red ball) because if you just say red then one day when you ask your child “what is this?” while pointing to the ball, it is very likely that they will say the color (e.g. red) instead of ball.
This game also allows you to model a variety of early verbs such as pop, put in, pick up, get, catch, and give.
Bubbles are a must for any kiddo. It’s one of those magical tools that can be used in a variety of ways and will bring immense joy to your child. Here are a few ways you can use bubbles:
As usual you can work on using bubbles for intentional communication such as requesting. Blow bubbles a few times and then pause before you blow the next bubble. Look at your child and say “do you want more bubbles?” and wait for your child to either sign “more” or vocalize something before you blow bubbles and say “okay, more bubbles” and blow them. You can also work on the request “I want bubbles” or “give me bubbles” if your child wants to blow the bubbles themselves.
You can target sizes (big,little) by asking your child if they want a big bubble or a little bubble. Look at your child and say “blow big bubble” then blow a big bubble. Then say “blow little bubble” and blow a little bubble. Then once they understand the difference between big and little you can ask “do you want a big or little bubble?” and try and have your child imitate “little”, “big”, “little bubble”, “big bubble”, “blow little bubble”,”blow big bubble” depending on their age and language skills. You can also have them use their hands to gesture for a big or little bubble to add a visual component to further help understand the concept of size.
You can also say “pop bubble” when you pop a bubble and have your child imitate you saying “pop bubble” each time they pop a bubble. This will help them get a lot of repetition to practice their early sounds /p, b/. If your child is speaking in single words then have them say “pop” but after every couple of bubbles popped continue to model the higher level – pop bubble.
You can also practice turn taking – “I blow (bubbles), you blow (bubbles), my turn, your turn”.
You can blow bubbles and practice prepositions by blowing bubbles in different directions or on objects. For example, you can ask your child if they want the bubbles to go up or down by modelling the words and actions. Say “up”, “go up”, “blow up”, or “bubbles up” then blow the bubbles up. Do so repeatedly. Then you can switch it and say “down”, “go down”, “blow down”, or “bubbles down” then blow bubbles down. Then you can ask your child “should we blow bubbles up or down?” and try to have your child imitate “up”, “down”, “blow up”, “blow down”, “bubbles up”, “bubbles down”, or “blow bubbles up/down” depending on their age/language skills. You can also blow bubbles on things and have them give you directions “blow on table”, “bubbles on table” or “blow bubbles on table”. You can also give the directions and ask them to blow bubbles up, down, on the table, in the kitchen, under the couch and so on.
Bubbles also allow you to model a variety of early verbs such as pop, blow, give, fly (e.g. fly up bubble), fall (e.g. fall down bubble), and go. For older children you can also work on expanding use of verbs in sentences. For example, while your child pops bubbles you can ask “what are you doing?” and have them imitate the sentence “I am popping bubbles.” You can also blow bubbles up and as they fall down pretend it’s raining bubbles and have your child practice saying “it is raining bubbles.”
For older children you can use bubbles to help improve counting skills. You can have a popping competition and ask “how many bubbles can you pop?” then take turns and count out loud “1,2,3…” and then work on the target sentences “I can pop ten bubbles”, “I popped three bubbles” and “you popped four bubbles” and target phrases such as “I won/you won.” You can also target more, most, less, and least by asking “who popped the most bubbles?” and using targets like “I popped more bubbles than mom” or “I popped the most bubbles.” You may work on comparative/superlative adjectives as well such as bigger/biggest – “I blew a bigger bubble” or “I blew the biggest bubble.”
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