Tag Archives: play therapy

How to Expand Your Child’s Play!

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Play is highly correlated to your child’s cognitive and speech and language development and is a great way to bond with your little one! Many parents are challenged by how to play with their little one and get involved in their world. Not only is learning to play important, but equally important is the expansion of your little one’s play.

Some toddlers get “stuck” in wanting to play with a toy in only one or two ways. Toddlers who play with a toy in a limited number of ways are showing us that they do not quite understand the function or multiple functions of a toy. Take for example a child who only moves a car back and forth on a table. This little one is showing us they understand that the car can move, but they are not yet aware of all the other things we can do with that same car. We can drive the car up the couch, it can crash or fall, the car can get gas or a car wash, pick up pretend toys and animals, or take us to different places like the grocery store or to see friends and family.

Why Do We Want to Expand Play?

Expanded play shows us your little one’s expanded understanding of the world. Play allows adults to label and model actions that your child is completing, in turn, helping your child’s speech and language skills develop.

The higher levels of play your little one demonstrates, the more they understand their world and the more language they have. If a child is playing with an object in just one way, there is a limited amount of words we can use to talk about that play interaction. For example: Your little one hands you a ball. You could say: “Ball!” “Look, ball.” “Red ball.” “Big ball.” If your child throws a ball to you, you can add “Throw ball.” “Bounce!” “Go ball!” “My turn!” “Your turn” and so much more. By expanding from showing to playing, there are SO MANY more words we can use to support your little one’s vocabulary development!

Tips for Expanding Play:

  1. Get on your child’s level:Sit on the floor or at the table together so you are physically at the same level as your child. Being on the same level also increases your eye contact and is easier to share attention with your child.
  2. Follow their lead:If your kiddo is playing with a car, you play with a car too! Try finding another of the same toy so you each have a toy and you don’t have to take turns.
  3. Add ONE play idea at a time:Sometimes we get a little over-zealous showing our kids 50 different ways to do something—it can be overwhelming. Remember expanding play is a gradual process and each child learns at their own pace. Your little one might need you to show something once or they might need some more help to copy your play—that is okay. Start by adding ONE step. Your child shows you a ball. You roll the ball back to them. Once your child is imitating one action, show them something new (try bouncing the ball)!
  4. Keep your language simple: We want to say one word above what our child is saying. If your little one says, “Ball” add an action word to describe how you are playing: “Ball go!” “Bounce ball.” etc. If your little one isn’t saying anything yet, just label the object or the action, or even just make a silly sound (slurping if you’re playing with a pretend cup)!
  5. Don’t force it:If your little one is getting frustrated that you are changing their play, show them one more time and move on. We want to keep play fun, exciting, and enjoyable for both of you! If your little one abandons an activity, move with them or take a short break and join them later to play again.

For more info on play and play milestones, check out some of PlayWorks’ previous blog posts:

Play in speech and language therapy: http://playworkschi.wpengine.com/toddlers-speech-therapist-playing-child/

Toy guide for babies through toddlers: http://playworkschi.wpengine.com/toy-guide-babies-toddlers/

Jessie Delos Reyes, MA, CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist

Image: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/want-to-boost-your-toddlers-development-put-a-toy-chicken-on-your-head-1.485117

Toys: How Many Is Too Many?

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“It is a happy talent to know how to play,” -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Toys help foster children’s play development. Toys are one of the first opportunities that a child has to explore and interact in their environment. They open up a world of learning opportunities through education of play. Toys provide developmental growth when it comes to cognition, language, motor skills, and social interactions (plus many more). They create opinions, reactions, and fun experiences. These experiences allow a child to engage independently and socially. Toys must be introduced and used interactively with another social/ communitive partner (i.e. an adult or parent). A child must learn how to functionally play with a toy in order to use a toy to the fullest.

Although toys have many benefits for toddlers and preschoolers, having too many toys can feel overwhelming and distracting. A toddler can feel distracted by the overload of toys and not use the toys to their full potential. A toy must be introduced to a toddler first to learn the functionality of the toy. Too many toys can distract a child from focusing their attention on one toy at a time. Many children will pick up toy bins/containers, dump them out, move them around, the room, instead of using them for their functionality. Using a toy functionally with adult assistance will help a toddler use the toy to the fullest. After a child is done using a toy having them clean up and move on to the next activity will help with the growth of their attention span. Having too many toys does not encourage the growth of their attention span.

Tips

  • When your child gets a new toy engage with the toy together first! Get on your child’s level (one the floor) and look at the toy together! Talk about what the toy is, what the toy can do, and play with your toddler and the toy.
    • Example: “Wow look at your new red car! I love how shinny it is. Vroom Vroom let’s see how fast the car goes!”
  • Select toys that have multiple developmental benefits. For example, find toys that can be used to benefit cognition and language growth.
  • Organize your child’s toys into bins to help your child organize what they are playing with.
    • Use pictures to highlight what toy goes in which bin
  • Switch out the toys and the bins to keep things fresh.
    • Example: don’t have all your toys out at reach for your child at all times. Put some toys out of sight so that your child can focus their attention on the toys in front of them.

Have fun playing!

Rachel Weiser, MS, DT

Developmental Therapist

Resources:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/12/05/many-toys-bad-children-study-suggests/

https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/may2017/case-brain-science-guided-play

https://www.therapyshoppe.com/

Family Time: Helps kids grow!

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During the holiday season, many families have the pleasure of spending time together, increasing their daily family time. There are many fun family activities that you and your child can do to promote their cognitive development.

Winter scavenger hunt: Create a winter themed scavenger hunt around your home and outdoors.

  • Tip:
    • This is a great way for children to work on their picture concepts, matching skills, and helps them in making associations.
  • Activities:
    • Indoor Hunt: Hide items around your home related to winter and have your child find them (e.g. hat, coat, gloves).
    • Outdoor Hunt: Talk about the different things your child might see while walking outdoors during the winter (e.g. snow, snowmen, shovels). Go on a “hunt” to find these items while spending time outdoors.

Organization/ laundry: Have your child help you organize your home and take care of daily chores.

  • Tips:
    • This is great for categorization of colors or sizes.
    • Learning where items go around your home will help further develop spatial relationship knowledge.
  • Activities:
    • Turn this into guessing game around your house.
  • Examples:
    • Narrate what you are doing and have your child join along: “Hmm, I wonder where I should put away Jon’s toys.”
    • Make a mistake and have your child catch/correct it: “I should put the pillows away on the kitchen table.”

Singing songs: Singing songs is a great way to work on your child’s engagement and imitation songs.

  • Tip:
    • Using songs that your child has interest in will help maintain their attention span and further work on their engagement and imitation skills.
  • Activities:
    • Sing together: Listen to music around the house and in the car. Select music that your child shows interest in. Model singing and dancing along with the music.
    • Finger play songs with gestures (i.e. “If You’re Happy and You Know it”, “Wheels on the Bus”, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”): Model gestures for the song and encourage your child to imitate the gestures. Use hand over hand assistance if needed to help your child imitate the gestures.

Pin up pictures: Put pictures around your child’s room or in your home to practice picture identification.

  • Tips:
    • This activity helps your child work on word associations and improve memory.
    • You can pick pictures of your family (especially those that you will see during the holiday season) or your child’s favorite things (e.g. favorite toy, blanket, food item).
  • Activities:
    • First go around the house and label the pictured items for your child (i.e. “Look, there is a picture of your train set.”). Point to the pictures while labeling them out loud, then start asking your child to label the pictures themselves.
    • Turn it into a game! After you feel your child can identify specific pictures ask your child to retrieve specific ones.

Winter crafts: Arts and crafts are a great way to engage with your child in creative ways. These activities help them practice their fine motor skills, their color concept knowledge, and their concept knowledge.

  • Tips:
    • Talk about the characteristics of the paint (e.g. the color, temperature).
    • Work on color identification. Label the colors for your child and have them work on labeling them independently.
    • Work on number identification. Count the cotton balls with your child. Have your child work on giving you “one” cotton ball at a time.
  • Activities:
    • Ice paint: Put food coloring into an ice tray with water and a popsicle stick. Freeze the “paint”. Once frozen, take tray out and have your child paint with it on paper
    • Painting the snow: Use food coloring and a spray bottle. Fill the spray bottle with a few drops of food coloring and water. Take the snow paint outdoors and have them spray the snow.
    • Cotton ball snow man: Draw the outline of a snow man on a piece of paper for your child. Have them glue cotton balls inside the snowman to make it look like snow.

Have a great winter season!

Rachel Weiser, MS, DT

Developmental Therapist

References:

http://dailymom.com/nurture/encouraging-cognitive-development-through-arts-and-crafts/

http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/development/intellectual/toddler-development-activities/

Taking the Pressure off Talking!

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If you are a parent who has tried implementing some of the language strategies your speech therapist has taught you with your little one- only to end in your child running off or having a meltdown- this blog is for you! Often the reason for these meltdowns is due to pressure. Not only the pressure put on your child but also the pressure you put on yourself. Below are three strategies for ways to encourage language development while avoiding a meltdown.

  1. Finding your child’s limit- Knowing how much you can push a child can be tricky. We want to encourage and challenge our little ones, but not to the point that we see a meltdown. Try starting with something that is easy for them and make slow, gradual changes to increase the difficulty. The moment you notice your child is at their limit pull back. It’s important to keep in mind that your child’s limit can change daily or even by activity and we may need to adjust accordingly.
  2. Play- The best way to encourage language development in our little ones is to play! Rather than planning a specific activity, think about what toys or activities your child loves and how you can incorporate language into that. If it something that they like then they will be more interested and engaged and you will be more likely to avoid a meltdown. If your child loves trucks- play with trucks. You can practice the sounds that they make or talk about their size and color. If you’re having fun then your child will too!
  3. Get moving- Sitting for extended periods of time can be hard for toddlers., so incorporate movement into your activities. This is a great way to engage your child and keep their attention while avoiding a tantrum. If you’re doing a puzzle you can put the pieces on the other side of the room so your child has to run to go get each piece or you could make an obstacle course out of pillows and blankets and work on following directions.

By taking the pressure off talking you will see your child become more engaged and eager to participate. I hope these strategies are helpful and as always if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us!

Claire Kakenmaster, MS, CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist

Toy Guide for Babies and Toddlers

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With the holidays quickly approaching, families are always asking for recommendations for toys for their small children. Here are a few ideas for age-appropriate toys for your baby or toddler!

Babies (0 to 12 months)

YOU! Your baby from 0-3 months is most interested in his or her parent or caregiver. Encourage eye contact, sing songs, talk to, play peekaboo, and make silly faces at and with your baby!

Mobiles: As their vision is starting to become more clear, toys like mobiles with simple pictures or solid colors will motivate them to reach for the objects above.

Rattles: Our littlest humans are interested in sensory play so what better than something they can bang, shake, and mouth? Rattles provide visual, tactile, oral, and auditory stimulation.

Unbreakable Mirror: Children love to look at themselves and playing in the mirror teaches them self-awareness. Look at each other in the mirror, make faces, put stickers on your face, put toys on your head, or play peekaboo.

Young Toddlers (12 to 24 months)

Simple Books: Make sure the books have simple, real pictures. This will help young toddlers recognize objects in the world around them.

Push and Pull toys: These are great for gross motor activities. These toys encourage movement and great for early walkers.

Hammer and Ball or Peg toys: These are great cause and effect toys to help your child problem solve. Hammer and ball toys also allow them to use tools, which we know these little toddlers love!

Blocks, Cups, Stacking Rings: Stackable toys help children learn spatial relationships, size concepts, and problem-solving skills. And this allows them to do engage in one of their favorite activities – destruction!

Older Toddlers (24 to 36 months)

Matching/Sorting toys: Puzzles are a great way to teach matching and sorting! Older toddlers enjoy see organization in the world and help encourage the earliest of preschool readiness skills.

Pretend/Imaginative Play toys: How often do you see your older toddler use the remote control as a “phone”? Provide your child realistic objects or toys so that they can imitate your actions and daily life. Baby dolls, kitchen utensils/play food, toy phones, cars, trains, dress up clothes, child size broom or vacuum – these all encourage pretend or imaginative play. This type of play to helps your child learn about social-emotional relationships and shows you their understanding of the world.

Art Supplies: Large crayons, markers, clay, paint, glue sticks, child-safe scissors, and construction paper are great utensils to introduce art and explore color! Be sure all of your supplies are non-toxic and to engage in these activities while wearing clothing you don’t mind getting messy – or ruined!

Simple Board or Memory Games: As children get closer to three, these types of games are great ways to work on turn taking and exercise memory and object permanence skills.  It will also help your child improve their concentration.

Kimberly Shlaes, MAT, DT
Director of Developmental Therapy Services

Why is My Toddler’s Speech Therapist Only Playing with My Child?

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The importance of play in language development

Many parents are confused when their birth-to-three speech therapist arrives and begins talking about “play skills” instead of “speech skills.” Do not fret! Speech and play skills are HIGHLY related. Play, and more specifically pretend play, gives us a look into your child’s world. Play skills demonstrate your child’s cognitive skills, which are your child’s ability to think, process language, play attention, learn, and plan their next move. All of these skills are essential for speech and language development!

Let’s break it down!

 

There are four basic types of play: Exploratory, Functional, Constructive, and Pretend.

Exploratory:  using senses of touch, taste and smell to learn about new objects. This begins when your child has intentional control over their body. Children who enjoy shaking, mouthing or smelling new objects are in the exploratory stage.

Functional: using toys and objects as they were intended. Functional play, such as is using a spoon to stir, racing cars or rolling a ball. Pay attention to whether your child is using an object or simply enjoying watching one part of the object, such as wheels turning.

Constructive: manipulating objects to make something new. This stage of play includes more trial and error to see how pieces can work together with a final goal in mind. Constructive play includes building train tracks, assembling and disassembling blocks and other toys, or sorting shapes and objects.

Pretend or symbolic: using objects in imaginary ways. Such as, pretending your hand or a block is a phone, emptying a box to make a doll a bed or bathtub, pretending a baby is crying and soothing a baby, or making a pretend steering wheel for a car. Children who dress up and act like a specific person are also engaging in pretend play.

Why is it important?

If your child is using functional play then they are demonstrating an understanding of what objects are and why they are used. When your child uses pretend play, they are demonstrating symbolic understanding of one object for another object. Words are also symbolic! Words are a symbol to represent objects, people, events, feelings, and physical states. If your child is using objects for another object, then your child demonstrates understanding that words have symbolic meaning and the cognitive skills for using words meaningfully!

Children who are using words, but are not yet playing functionally or symbolically, likely do not yet have a solid understanding of word meanings and may have difficulty using the same words in a variety of contexts. For example, think of all the ways we can play with a ball: we can roll, throw, or bounce a ball. There are different balls for different sports, or we could even pretend a ball is an apple. A child who only knows “ball” for labeling or does not yet play with a ball meaningfully is not understanding what that toy is used for and how it can be related to other objects or people. Children who are not using pretend play by the time they are two years old are at risk of cognitive and speech and language deficits.

Ways to help your toddler!

Meet your little one where they are with play. If your child is still in the exploratory phase, try modeling constructive play (fill and dump or assemble and knock down) and functional play to begin showing how objects go together. For example, a spoon can be used for stirring or eating food, but we don’t use a spoon to wiggle in front of our face.

Once your little one has some early play skills, get creative and add additional prompts or a new way to play. Pretend food, animals and baby dolls are some of my favorite toys for pretend play!

For more information on pretend and symbolic play, check out a previous blog from Kim Shales, our director of developmental therapy.

If you have further questions or concerns, call PlayWorks Therapy, Inc. for a full speech and language evaluation.

Jessica Delos Reyes, MA, CCC-SLP

Speech-Language Pathologist

Image: https://www.google.com/search?q=pretend+play&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirjJi9097WAhUi3YMKHdKuDyQQ_AUICygC&biw=1198&bih=700#imgrc=-kgdDwYHFdD1kM:

Spring Break Speech and Language Opportunities

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As spring break approaches, parents frequently ask what they can do on their various trips so their children don’t fall behind and they can help maintain progress in speech. Without their house full of toys, they are often at a loss on how to play and incorporate speech and language practice. The short answer is, pretty much everything involves language and ordinary activities can easily be turned into a targeted speech and language opportunity! With a new environment, it can present lots of new opportunities for increasing vocabulary and new ways to use language they already have.  No matter where you find yourself, from airplanes to hotel rooms, beaches to mountains, there are lots of opportunities to talk with your kiddo. Here are some specific examples:   

  • Identifying/Labeling: There are bound to be a lot of familiar as well as new and exciting things to see wherever you go. Depending on your kiddo’s goals, give them specific things to look for and identify or have them label things they see for you to look for. Make an “I Spy” game out of it for some back and forth fun that can be played in the airplane/car or exploring the new scenery.
  • Imitating actions: This can be a great opportunity for teaching new verbs. Have your kiddo imitate your actions and then see if they can identify/use them when they come up again. Whether it be swimming or building sand castles, hiking/climbing mountains, riding new rides, or even licking an ice cream cone, there are countless activities they will engage in that will present opportunities for practicing language.
  • Follow directions: Whether you’re doing it intentionally for language practice or simply trying to keep everyone together at a theme park, there will likely be novel directions given (and hopefully followed!) wherever you go. Take this opportunity to practice directions at whatever level your kiddo is practicing/performing (i.e. simple commands, one-step directions, two-step related or unrelated directions, etc.) Remember to use language at their level and one level above to ensure they understand and can be successful. Make a game out of it to make it fun while they’re still practicing goals!
  • Use your imagination! Whatever the trip entails, there are always ways to encourage language. Don’t forget to label what else you see throughout your trip to give them a language model of these new and exciting things in their environment!

Therese Schmidt, MS, CCC-SLP

Using Play-Doh to Target Early Language Skills

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One of my favorite toys that I like to use in therapy sessions is Play-Doh. The possibilities are endless and kids tend to have so much fun! The following are several goals that can be targeted while playing with Play-Doh with your children:

1) Imitation of Play Actions: Typically, kids learn to imitate our actions before they learn to imitate our sounds and words.  You can use Play-Doh to target this early imitation skill! Demonstrate different actions with the Play-Doh and praise any attempt your child makes to do what you do. Examples include squishing, rolling, making a ball, dropping, patting, etc. You can also bring in other props such as a rolling pin and cookie cutter to make different shapes. You could also incorporate other toys such as cars and have the cars roll over the Play-Doh, run into the Play-Doh, etc. You could even pretend that the Play-Doh is a car or a train and make it move across the table. Again, the point here is for your child to attempt to imitate what you do with the Play-Doh so praise them for all attempts!

2) Requesting via signs or words: My favorite requests to use in sessions include “more” and “help”. Encourage your child to request at their current level.  If they are able to verbally request encourage them to use their words. If they are currently able to sign that is great too! Even if they are just reaching for more Play-Doh you can model the word and honor their request. To target “help” give your child a closed container of Play-Doh and encourage them to ask for help before you open the container for them. To target “more”, give them a small piece at a time and encourage them to request “more”.

3) Teaching Action Words: Model action words while playing with the Play-Doh. My favorites include open (while opening the container), take out, roll, smash, drop, squish, cut, push, put in, close (while closing the lid), etc. Any word that you can think of to model with the Play-Doh would be great to use here!

4) Following one step directions: Tell your child what to do with the Play-Doh and see if they can follow without a model. If they do not understand the direction, model for them and then ask them to do it again without the model. You can get silly with this and ask them to put the Play-Doh on their head or nose. You could also give your kids directions to make your own recipe!

The possibilities are endless so have fun with it!

Resources: Laura Mize, Teach Me To Talk

Katie Dabkowski, MS, CF-SLP