Summer Fun: Let’s Play to Promote Your Child’s Communication Skills!
By Roxane Bélanger, M.O.A., SLP-C, Reg. CALSPO
Speech Language Pathologist, First Words Preschool Speech and Language Program of Ottawa and Renfrew County
As we head into those sunny, summery days, parents may find they spend a lot of time playing with their child. And that is great news for your child. Play builds communication skills. It helps grow their language and their speech abilities. Children at play learn the words associated with the toy for example. Children also learn to listen and follow directions, take turns, and solve problems. Through play and games, children many social communication skills such as how to take turns in a game, share a toy, seek out a playmate, follow a set of rules, develop their imaginary play and role-playing skills, negotiate how long to play with a toy, cooperate and accept an outcome at the end. All those skills are closely linked to communication.
Play changes as children grow and develop
It is never too soon or too late to start playing with your child. But know that the type of play and the games children enjoy will change as they grow and develop. It is important to provide the appropriate toys depending on your child’s interest but also developmental level.
Babies explore through play. Little ones love to play by using all their senses to explore objects. This helps them learn the names of things and how things work.
- Under 6 months, babies like to reach for toys. They enjoy rattles and mobiles. They like to play simple social games like peekaboo with you.
- Children at 12 months bang or stack toys. They are more active when playing peek-a-boo. Simple pretend play is starting. You will notice that your child will start rolling cars or balls.
Toddlers love to imitate the adults around them. They start to use more complex pretend to play.
- Between 14 to 18 months, toddlers expand their pretend play skills. The pretend play is based on everyday familiar activities. Your toddler will perform one pretend action away from self, for example, will pretend to feed a doll or an adult.
- Children at 18 months continue to pretend play based on everyday, familiar activities but it will often include sequences of two actions (e.g.,, the doll will be fed with a bottle and a spoon) or two people receive one action (e.g.,, your child feeds the doll with a spoon and then their parent)
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Preschoolers start to play more cooperatively with their peers and their play becomes more complex.
- Children between 3 and 4 years begin to play together with other children in associative play. They share play materials but may still follow their own storyline. They especially like to use their imagination.
- Between the ages of 4 and 5 years, your preschooler shows cooperative play, the highest level of social play where children play in groups and everyone is cooperating to achieve a common goal. This type of play involves a lot of language to “set the scene. During this type of play, children use language to identify their role in pretend play (e.g.,, doctor, mother, child), to negotiate a change in the “roles” in the play and/or to take turns making suggestions about the plot. Children also start to like to play games that have rules. They like to make things and do crafts.
Play comes in all sorts of ways!
This summer, focus on providing different play experiences to your child. Children love and need to do different types of playing. Help them grow their play and communication skills with these play activities:
- Play together - You are the best toy in the house. Be playful! Get your child’s attention by using an excited voice, fun words (e.g., “weee!”), gestures and facial expressions. “Peek-a-boo” or hide-and-seek help your child pay attention to you, take turns and learn new words.
- Play with toys - Instead of watching from the sidelines, get down on the floor. Get your own toy and copy what your child is doing. Add words and make up new stories. At clean-up time, talk about the toys and group them by category into the bins (e.g.,“farm animals”, “tool” toys, “soft” toys, etc.).
- Play all day - Turn chores into fun. As your child throws clothes into the laundry basket, add words to her actions (e.g., “You threw it REALLY high.) and what you see (e.g., “The sock goes in the basket”). Have your child make a sandwich or popcorn. Talk about the steps. Use words like: “First, after, then, at the end”.
- Active play - Get physical and imitate him. Take turns jumping off the steps (e.g., “My turn, your turn”). Add words to actions(e.g.,.. “I’m jumping. You’re climbing.”). Talk about spatial concepts (e.g., “The ball is in the hoop”, “slide down”).
- Sensory play - Shaving cream, rice bins, play dough….talk about how they feel and look. Use descriptive words (e.g., It feels wet, thick, squishy, etc.).
- Pretend play - Model simple pretend actions (e.g.,, feed a doll or go for a walk with a teddy bear) for your child. Turn a life situation into a pretend game (e.g., Your child has hurt her knee, call in the “Body part store” and order a new knee, size 3. Have it delivered home and tip the delivery man.). Reverse the roles (e.g., Pretend to be a child who doesn’t want to go to bed. Let your child pretend to be the parent.).
- Play sound and word games - Get silly with sounds (“Sam soon saw the sun”) and rhyming games (“Matt the cat”). Play 20 questions or ask riddles to expand your preschooler’s complex language and memory skills. Play board games with rules(e.g., Snakes and Ladders, etc.) or car games (e.g., I Spy).
Play builds various speech, language and social communication skills for all kids of all ages. So join the fun, and play with your child.
Recognizing speech and language problems early on is the best approach!
Check out our First Words Communication Checkup tool to know if your child is
meeting communication milestones. Refer online if necessary. For more information, visit
