Gifts to Encourage Speech & Language Development

As a pediatric speech-language pathologist I work just as much with parents as I do with the little ones! Part of my job is to help parents learn how to carryover communication skills and strategies to the home environment. One of the ways I do this is through toy recommendations. Play is an essential part to a child’s development. It is how they learn. The right kind of toys can help facilitate language development. Toys are the tools, but most need to have a facilitator to model language and interact with the child, whether it be a parent, aunt, uncle, or even an older sibling. So play with your child, talk about what you are doing, and use your imagination! The holidays are coming up so I thought I would create a list of some of the favorite gifts for speech and language development!

**Disclaimer: This is a list of gifts that help promote speech and language development. It is not a replacement to therapeutic intervention. If you have concerns about your child’s language development please consult your pediatrician and/or school district.**

1. Cause & Effect Toys

This is key for early communicators. The concept of “cause and effect” is a pre-linguistic and foundational skill needed for communication. Cause and effect toys can help children develop curiosity as well as attention. It helps children learn how their actions can control their environment. For example, a cause would be I use words to request and the effect would be getting what I requested.

2. Turn-Taking Toys

Turn-taking is another skill that is essential to communication. This is a great way to teach and promote social communication amongst youngsters. Turn-taking teaches the concept of reciprocity. For example, reciprocity is utilized in “my turn/ your turn” as it is also utilized in conversation: I talk/you talk. Depending on the skill level and age of the child, board games can be used or something as simple as tossing a ball back and forth. This can be done with most group activities as long as you enforce the turn-taking aspect of the activity (e.g. taking turn shooting basketballs). I’m going to list a few favorite among the kiddos I’ve worked with in the past.

3. Role Play/Dramatic Play Toys

I like to call these “realistic toys” or “toys that mimic real-life situations”. I’m talking about kitchen sets, doctor sets, baby dolls and dress-up. These toys allow for children to communicate while pretending to interact in real-life scenarios. This is great for developing social language skills, building vocabulary, and problem solving skills. They also allow for for children to explore language and use their imagination while playing make-believe in not so realistic situations— but princesses do exist! 😉

4. Repetitive/Interactive Books

Okay I know these aren’t toys, but books are so good for language learning! I highly recommend repetitive books. Meaning books that have a phrase that is repeated on every page or so (e.g. “Brown bear, brown bear. What do you see?“) The repetition gives your child something to anticipate. This anticipation will hopefully cue your child to imitate those repeated phrases as you read to him to her. I have a freebie list of repetitive books and how to use them to elicit language. Send me an email and I’ll happily send it your way! Rebecca@lifewithbecks.com

My trick to get children who don’t have an interest in books interested is to use interactive books. An example would be a textured book. This gives your child another way to interact with the books other than listening and looking. Now they can feel the pictures. Another example would be books with commands (e.g. “shake the book to get rid of the dots!”). Its always fun to see their faces light up as your turn the page and there are no more dots haha. My third example would be flip-flap books (e.g. books with pictures hidden under flaps) and pop-up books.

5. Back to Basics

The most important thing is that your child is engaged during play. You can’t force someone to talk about/request something they are not interested in. The same goes for children. The toys don’t have to be extravagant or over the top. Your child just has to be interested and engaged, and if he or she is the chances of him or her communicating are greater. A lot of times during therapy I get the most bang for my buck with the really simple toys, such as bubbles or play-doh. I’ll list some gift ideas that encompass these basic toys.

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Additional Links

I love using the holiday themes to encourage language development! If you do too check out my post on fun ways to use literacy this Halloween! https://lifewithbecks.com/favorite-halloween-books-preschool-speech-therapy/