The Power of Play for Building Speech & Language Skills

Play is hands-down the best way to teach young children speech and language skills at home. Research has shown that meaningful play with caregivers or other children builds approximately 90% of a child’s early language skills. In addition, developmentally appropriate play significantly contributes to a child’s overall cognitive and social-emotional development and their future academic success.

Learning through play is a principle that drives our private pediatric Speech and Language therapy practice based in Los Angeles. Some of the reasons why play is so crucial for a child’s communication and language development, are because meaningful interactions through play can:

·      Build joint attention skills (shared focus on an object or activity)

·      Teach turn taking

·      Encourage imitation

·      Develop a child’s receptive and expressive vocabulary

·      Strengthen problem solving and reasoning skills

·      Support social communication and peer relationship skills

Below we provide a brief overview of the six developmental stages of play that have been widely researched amongst typically developing children, from birth through approximately four years of age. While children typically move through these six ‘stages’ of play in a predictable order, the stages often overlap and it’s important to remember that every child develops these skills at their own pace.

Knowing the stages of play is helpful — but parents often ask: “What should I actually be doing with my child?” Below we also highlight some of the important language connections that are being made as well as simple ways parents can support their child’s speech and language growth during each developmental stage.

The 6 Developmental Stages of Play

1. Unoccupied Play (Birth–3 Months)

What this type of play looks like:

• Random movements

• Kicking arms and legs

• Looking at nearby objects

• Exploring hands and feet

  
  

Language Connection: At this stage, newborn infants are mainly focused on their own bodies and their immediate environment. Even though your baby is not yet able to imitate facial expressions, sounds or gestures, caregivers can help support language development by:

• Talking and singing during everyday routines - “You’re kicking your legs!”, “Wash wash wash your hands”

• Label body parts

• Responding to your baby’s sounds and coos (e.g. imitating your child’s sounds)

• Making eye contact and smiling often

• Speaking in infant-directed speech – also known as motherese, this is a style of speech that many parents often use when communicating with infants and it features a higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, simplified vocabulary, shorter utterances and a slower rate of speech

• Using exaggerated facial expressions

  
  

Recommended Activities:

• ·Tummy time with high-contrast books

• Soft rattles

• Black-and-white picture cards

• Baby-safe mirrors

 2. Solitary Play (3 Months–2 Years)

What this type of play looks like:

• A child playing alone with toys

• Exploring objects independently

• Dumping, filling, banging, stacking

  
  

Language Connection: This stage is great for modeling foundational vocabulary words and early language concepts (e.g. “ball”, ‘up/down’), introducing cause-and-effect toys, and teaching early developing sounds, words and gestures. Children learn words best by hearing them in meaningful contexts – so try to frequently name/label the toys or objects your children are playing with and interested in.

To better support language and speech development during this stage, parents can:

• Narrate actions during play and everyday routines (“You’re stacking blocks!”, “I’m drinking water”)

• Label common objects, actions and functional vocabulary in a variety of contexts – during play, mealtimes, while reading picture books etc.

• Model simple phrases (keep them short and simple, at 2-3 words – “Big dog!”)

• Make animal, vehicle and cause/effect sounds (“boom/crash”, ‘moo’, “beep beep”) related to what your child is playing with

• Sing predictable songs for daily transitions (e.g. “This is the way we wash our hands, wash our hands, wash our hands…”)

• Read developmentally appropriate children’s books

• Observe your child’s interests during their play

  
  

Recommended Activities:

·       Stacking cups

·       Shape sorters

·       Cause-and-effect toys (musical toys, light-up toys, open/close toys)

·       Ball rolling

·       Bubbles

·       Simple board books

3. Spectator/Onlooker Play (Around 2 Years)

What this type of play looks like:

• Children begin to watch and observe other children playing around them

• Children may glance over and observe how other children/adults are playing nearby,  without joining them in their actions just yet

• Children may still talk to other children playing nearby

  
  

Language Connection: During this stage of play development, children are introduced to new vocabulary and different types of play from observing others around them.

This is a great time to:

• Comment on what your child is doing

• Ask simple questions (“What is he building?”)

• Play alongside your child, using both familiar and novel toys

• Allow your child to simply observe how you play with their toys in different ways

• Encourage imitation by modeling words and short phrases as you play – by commenting on your child’s actions

• Rotate your children’s toys so they get exposed to new vocabulary and are more interested and engaged in novel toys

• Provide simple cause-effect toys for them to independently discover and problem solve as well as some more complex toys, for them to begin to learn how to ask for help from nearby adults

• Introduce ‘my turn/your turn’ during play

Recommended Activities:

• Playgrounds

• Water table

• Sensory bins with rotated toys

• Cause-effect toys: interactive sound puzzles and books, lift-a-flap books, lock and key toys, push and go cars

4. Parallel Play (2–3 Years)

What this type of play looks like:

• Children begin playing beside another child

• Child may play with similar toys as other children, but with minimal interaction

• Child may glance over to observe how other children/adults are playing

  
  

Language connection: Parallel play is important for social communication development because it increases joint attention and an increased awareness of others, as well as early conversational and turn taking skills.

During this stage of play, parents can:

• Model simple peer language (“My turn!”, “Give me please”, “I want + noun”, “look at this!”)

• Expand upon your child’s utterances (“Car!” → “Fast car!”)

• Model more pretend play actions and use common toys for other purposes (e.g. toy food can be ‘fed’ to stuffed animals)

• Follow your child’s lead and play with toys that are of interest to them, narrating actions as you play

• Provide opportunities for your child to observe other children play, by bringing them to playgrounds, arranging play dates, and commenting on how other children are playing nearby, “Wow, he is digging the sand!”

  
  

Recommended Activities:

• Playdough

• Trains

• Farm and zoo animals

• Simple matching puzzles

• Cars and ramp

• Simple coloring

• Large Lego or wooden blocks

5. Associative Play (3–4 Years)

What this type of play looks like:

• Children are learning to share and take turns using the same toys

• Children are communicating and interacting more with one another during play, but are not yet working cooperatively

• Children may be playing together on the same piece of playground equipment, but all doing different actions (e.g. climbing, swinging)

  
  

Language connection: Children develop more peer communication skills and conflict/resolution skills, more advanced descriptive language, and are learning to ask/answer questions.

During this stage of play, parents can:

• Model social problem-solving language and peer turn-taking skills

• Continue to narrate and tell stories during play

• Model and introduce new and more descriptive vocabulary (e.g. adjectives, adverbs, more advanced prepositions)

• Follow your child’s lead - talk about what they are interested in and not what you think they should be playing with

• Model more pretend role-play

Recommended Activities:

• Dress up clothes

• Doctor kits

• Play dollhouse sets

• Play food and cooking toys

• Toy tool sets

• Simple board games

• Forts or play tents

6. Cooperative Play (4+ Years)

What this type of play looks like:

• More organized and coordinated group play -where a child has an interest in playing WITH others (rather than beside them)

• More role-playing and pretend play when playing by self and others

• Children learn to follow shared rules and take turns

• Children begin to use language for storytelling and role-play

  
  

During this stage of play parents can:

• Model and engage children in more pretend play – using common household objects and open-ended toys such as pretend play doctor and chef kits or dress up

• Embed more ‘storytelling’ during play and sequencing terms (e.g. What should we do first, next, last?”)

• Assist with peer perspective-taking and social problem solving (e.g. “How does that make him feel?”)

• Introduce simple and cooperative gameboards and more structured turn-taking games (e.g. Memory match, early gameboards, Bingo)

  
  

Recommended Activities:

• Treasure and scavenger hunts

• Simon Says imitation games

• Pretend play

• Simple building kits with directions like Legos

• Story creation games

• Superhero and dress-up clothes

• Create themed play (e.g. pretend vet or hospital clinic, restaurant, store)

To learn more about our play-based approach to delivering family-centered speech and language therapy services, visit our website at: http://www.sunnyspotspeech.com.

ABOUT US:

Sunny Spot Speech provides private speech therapy services and evaluations for kids in home, online, at your child's preschool, daycare, private school, or at another community location throughout Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. We have an incredible and growing team of bilingual (Spanish and English speaking) Los Angeles based Speech Language Pathologists who are knowledgeable in the assessment and treatment of a wide range of communicative disorders, including (but not limited to) children with Language Disorders and Developmental Delays, Hearing Loss, AAC users, Fluency disorders, Articulation and Phonological Disorders, Childhood Apraxia of Speech, and Gestalt Language Processors.