Playtime, while not only endless amounts of fun, is a crucial part of children’s development! However, kids love to play on their own terms, so when it comes to structured activities, you may lose some engagement. The question of how we can build language skills while keeping things fun, has a simple answer. PLAY! Playtime is a perfect time to work on building speech and language skills. Why? Because of the natural environment. When kids are in the unstructured setting of playtime, they feel like they are calling the shots. Kids will be so busy having fun, that they won’t realize they are learning at the same time! Below are some ways you can build your child’s speech and language skills, all while playing what they want to play!
Parallel Talk
Parallel talk simply means to talk about what your child is doing. If the child is rolling a car around on the floor, you may say something like, “the car goes fast!” or if the child puts an animal in the car you may say something like, “Dinosaur in the car” or “dinosaur is driving.” You can also narrate what you are doing while playing. Saying things like “car go up” and “put it in” teaches kids about spatial concepts, as well as language building. This language-building strategy helps children to understand that their actions have words that go with them. The goal is to get kids talking about what they are doing during play.
Unexpected Events
Do a little prep work by setting up the playroom so that there are some unexpected things happening. Maybe a toy is “broken” or doesn’t work (because you took the batteries out of it). This will likely cause the child to have a reaction. It creates a situation in which they may need to ask for help or become frustrated. This can serve as a language building opportunity! Teach your child the appropriate way to communicate in this instance. “Oh, you need help, don’t you?” You can say, ‘Mommy, help!’”. Make sure to emphasize the words you are trying to teach your child (“help” in this example). Take this strategy a step further and put some desired toys out of reach, or in a hard-to-open box/bag. By doing this, you are creating new situations for your child to learn or use their language skills, while keeping it in its natural context.
Waiting
After you communicate something to your child, resist the urge to say or do something else before giving your child an opportunity to respond. Children take a longer time to process language as they are learning it. Kids can get easily overwhelmed if they are given question after question after question, which may cause a negative reaction. By providing wait time, you are giving your child an opportunity to respond and react in their own way. In the example above, you wouldn’t want to fix the broken toy right away after giving your child the tools to request help. Wait 30 seconds and see what your child does. They may just surprise you!
Following Your Child’s Lead
This strategy is all about helping your child to be engaged and interested in the activity. The best way to do that is to let them choose and you follow along. If the child is interested and having fun, they are more likely to make connections with the language skills you are working on than if you chose an activity they aren’t very interested in. If your child has a difficult time choosing an activity, give them a choice between a few different activities or games.
Limit Questions
This is more of a “what not to do” during play, and it’s a tricky one to stick to, even for speech pathologists. What requires a response? A question, of course. Initially, that may seem like a perfect strategy to get a child talking. But this again comes back to helping the child to feel in control. By asking a question, you are demanding a response, which puts a lot of pressure on the child. This may cause the child to talk less if they are unsure of what to say. Instead of asking your child a question, go ahead and provide the answer. For example, instead of asking, “What does a cow say?” tell them, “a cow says Moooooo.” Then use the waiting strategy and see how your child responds.
BONUS: Always try to incorporate turn-taking while playing. This helps children in many ways. Learning to take turns during games and playtime helps children learn how to take turns while communicating as well. Turn-taking also promotes sharing, patience, and self-regulation – all things that are important as they continue to develop their speech and language skills!
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The best part of these strategies is that your child doesn’t realize that they are learning! Fun and memorable experiences help your child build connections faster than if the child was learning the same skill during a structured task. It’s important to remember that using these tricks will have an effect in the long run, but you may not see immediate changes. For example, if you are modeling pairing a noun and verb together through parallel talk, don’t necessarily expect your child to start pairing nouns and verbs together that day. These things take time, and patience! The strategies you use today will have a big impact on the language your child uses in the future.
For more information, resources, or support on how to develop your child’s social skills, contact our team! Our offices in North Liberty and Des Moines provide assistance for families across the central and eastern Iowa areas. Give us a call today!
info@enrichmenttherapies.com
740 Community Drive, Unit A
North Liberty, IA 52317
319-626-2553
infodm@enrichmenttherapies.com
5530 West Pkwy, Suite 300
Johnston, IA 50131
515-419-4270
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