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