Top Toys For Early Intervention Language & Speech Development

‘Tis the season for giving and we have some excellent toy suggestions for last-minute Holiday shoppers, that help promote speech and language development for toddlers and preschool-aged children. Our Los Angeles based team of Speech Language Pathologists and Speech Language Pathologist Assistants have compiled a list of our ‘go to’ toys we frequently use to engage, motivate and interact with children with speech and language delays between the ages of 1-4 years. 

We specialize in providing Early Intervention speech therapy services to children with a wide range of communication disorders, disabilities and developmental delays, throughout Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Using a family-centered and play-based approach, our mobile team of Speech Therapists always keep a few favorite toys in our car trunks, which we use to encourage language learning and speech development at children's homes or in their daycares and preschools.

Last year, we developed a list of our top toy recommendations for early AAC users and children with Orthopedic Impairments: https://www.sunnyspotspeech.com/post/toys-for-language-learning-recommended-by-speech-language-pathologists.

This year, we focused on recommending toys that we frequently use in our play-based Early Intervention therapy sessions for children aged 2-5 years.

1.        Balloon Pump Cars Racer Kit: This is a balloon launcher and powered car toy set that is extremely popular among all the children we see. We love to use this to initiate language opportunities for both verbal and nonverbal children (e.g. ‘more, stop, go, up, uh oh!, wow) and to motivate kids to engage in increased joint attention, play and turn-taking.  

2. Hide & Seek Learning Treehouse: This is a great cause-effect toy that helps teach matching and sorting, colors, shapes and more! It features ‘hide and seek’ doors that uncover hidden animals and apples of various colors. We enjoy using this as an introductory game for 'turn taking' and to focus on the question 'Where?' along with early prepositions.

   
   

   

   
   

3. Critter Clinic Hospital Pretend Play toy: This toy is excellent for teaching children how to ask for help, especially as they learn to use the keys to unlock the doors. It provides numerous opportunities for language learning and modeling, which continue to grow as a child's imitation and pretend play abilities progress.

   
   

   

4. Melissa & Doug “Poke a Dot” interactive books: Ideal for sensory seekers, this interactive book series features built-in 'popping' buttons that children can press as parents read aloud, naming and describing the familiar objects, animals, and actions depicted on each page. We love using these books to increase a child’s sustained attention to books and to introduce common vocabulary words. We also use it as a receptive language tool to help determine a child’s comprehension of common words and simple directions, by asking them to ‘push + noun’ on each page.

   
   

   

   
   

5. Matching & Sorting Farm Toy: This toy features 10 animal finger puppets hiding within 10 small barns. It's great for teaching and modeling animal sounds and basic concepts such as colors, numbers, and actions such as, ‘open, close, put in, take out.’ As children grow with this toy, we enjoy including it in shared pretend play, pairing it with farm animal stories, and crafting our own tales using the 'finger puppet' animals.

   
   

   

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.