Top Ten Toys for Speech and Language

Ready to uncover the magic of playtime and how it can fuel your child’s language development? Join me, Denise Stratton, an experienced pediatric speech-language pathologist, as I reveal my top 10 toy picks for therapy with the preschool/kindergarten age group. These game and activities are perfect for both articulation and language therapy better, and they meet my three criteria for therapy toys and activities:

• Lots of attributes to talk about
• Plenty of opportunities to talk about location and use prepositions
• Stimulate the imagination

 So, whether you’re a parent looking for guidance or a speech-language pathologist aiming to add more zest to your sessions, get ready for some practical advice on toys that enrich speech and language development. 

Transcript

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 Hello and welcome once again to the Speech Umbrella podcast. You know, I thought my downloads would take a deep dive this summer because it's summer, right? But that hasn't happened. In fact, they're going up. So I want to take a minute and thank everyone who listens, likes, subscribes, and otherwise supports the Speech Umbrella podcast.

You are greatly appreciated. Now, today's episode is really similar to episode number 87, where I described games for artic therapy with the older crowd. Well, today I'll be talking about my favorite toys for our younger clients. That's mainly preschoolers and kindergartners, but not just for articulation.

These are my favorite multipurpose toys that I can use for language and articulation therapy. The title of today's episode is My Top 10 Toys for Speech and Language. Every toy is an opportunity to engage in learning, but we SLPs know all too well that some toys are better than others. When I used to work in a special needs preschool and a new child appeared on my caseload, the first thing I would do is sit and play with them to get an initial take on their speech and language. And the better the toy they were playing with, the better my understanding of where they were.

What do I mean by better toys? One where we can talk about parts, sizes, shapes, and colors, and so on. And that's not all -toys with ways to use multiple prepositions and that fire the imagination fall into the 'better' category.

I vividly recall sitting down with a new student and her toy of choice was a Disney princess set. It had a few figurines and an illustrated plastic sheet that spread out on the floor with a castle on it. And now I have nothing against Disney princesses per se, but there was so little to talk about with this toy.

There was pretty much one color. You guessed it, pink, and the flat illustration had no dimension. So using prepositions was challenging and there just wasn't all that much you could do with it. There was no building, no sorting or creating. What about pretend play you might ask, and that's a good question.

Well, quite often, too often for my liking, a language impaired child playing with movie figurines will not venture beyond the story they know. So the toy fails the imagination criteria too. Getting to take on that child's speech and language that first day with her was like going upstream without a paddle.

The question I'm answering today is what are some great toys for speech and language therapy with preschool and kindergarten children? This podcast is for parents and SLPs. For parents because they'll often ask me for toy recommendations, and sometimes they will even go on Amazon and order a toy while we are in the session because they can see how well it works for developing communication.

And this podcast is also for SLPs because I want to save you time and money. I know how important it is to use your resources wisely, and I'm something of a quality control toy tester because I have the luxury to do that now. Sit back and listen to your very own best toys for a young child's speech and language development consumer report brought to you by The Speech Umbrella.

That's a mouthful. That could almost be a presentation title at one of our conferences. I don't think you can present unless you have at least a 10 word title. Speaking of 10, of course there are far more than 10 best toys in this category, but I had to stop somewhere and 10 seemed like a good number. I think you'll discover a few new toys and activities to add to your stash.

In fact, since toy number one is my own invention, I think I can guarantee it'll be new to you. By the way, in episode 87, I listed specific target words I often use for R and S, and that's because so many of my older artic clients are working on those two sounds. There are just way too many possibilities with the younger crowd, so I'm not doing that today.

But these toys and activities I cover today work well for both artic and language. They meet these criteria, lots of features to talk about, size, shape, colors, parts, et cetera, preposition opportunities, and they fire the imagination. Well, this has been quite a long introduction. Okay, so let's dive in.

Number one is Animals on the Boat. I've been using this activity since I thought it up in my college days. It has stood the test of time. This one is very inexpensive. What you need is a plastic tub, a clean styrofoam meat tray that is smaller than the tub, and little plastic animals. Oh, and an old towel to place under the tub to catch drips because this is a water activity.

Fill the tub about a third full of water, and this is your ocean. Put the tray in it. That's your boat. Now you take turns moving the animals towards the boat. But, and this is key, if you're using this for artic therapy, you hold the animal that the client chooses and you move it closer to them as they say the target word, and then give it to them to place on the boat, or in the water.

The animals often end up in the water. Now as far as features go with the different animals, you can talk about colors and parts and the sounds they make. For prepositions there is on and off and toward the boat and in the water. Then out of the water, then back on the boat. Imaginative play and water go together. What more can I say? There are plenty of reasons to imagine why the animals end up in the water or even which animals will end up in the water and which ones won't. By the way, check out the Hopping Frogs activity on episode 76, Three Task Oriented Movement Activities for Executive Function for another great water activity. Kids love water.

That whole episode can be viewed on my YouTube channel because I'm visually demonstrating how to do those activities. Animals on the boat could also be a task oriented movement activity if you're so inclined. Number two is Snap Dinos, which I got from Lakeshore. This is a mix and match dinosaur pieces set to build your own dinosaurs.

They're very colorful. They have multiple body parts. Tails, spikes, long necks, little arms, everything a dinosaur loving kid could ask for. And after they are built, we make up a story with a problem to be solved. These dinosaurs are often hungry. That's their problem. And they like mini m and ms if they can find them because we put them in places around the room. There's your prepositions. 

Number three is a dollhouse. This is more easily oriented to language than articulation, but with some creativity, you can use it for target articulation words. One of my clients who requests the house every single session is working on S, so we hide a mouse in the house for the dolls to find. So it can be done.

This toy is so awesome. Some of my clients' parents have bought the very dollhouse that I use because their children adore it so much they can hardly bear to leave the session. I've had two Dollhouse. My first one was very basic and then I bought my current one, and it has been a fantastic upgrade. It is my most expensive toy, but it's been worth every penny.

It's a three story dollhouse that comes with 20 pieces of furniture. You've got colorful furniture pieces, a top and bottom bunk, that's awesome, an upstairs, a downstairs, an oven that opens to put things in, a refrigerator that opens to put things in, furniture to sit in or hide behind. It's really sturdy.

I've had almost two years and it still looks brand new. It requires a tiny bit of assembly, but it's easy 'cause I did it all by myself. So, you know, it's easy. You do need to buy the dolls separately. The play possibilities are endless here, but one of my favorite ways is to make up stories with my clients who aren't quite ready to look at pictures and retell a story as you might do with say a Story Champ Story.

I even snap pictures of each scene of the story as we make it up so we can practice retelling it with a visual, and this is a great way to ease them into a more structured approach to narratives. 

Number four is the marshmallow bow. What you do is you load mini marshmallows into a tube that attaches to the bow, and when it's full, you let them fly.

Check out my simple tools video called Marshmallow Bow at Thespeechumbrella.com to see it for yourself. Some of the words we use as we're playing marshmallow bow is little squishy sweet marshmallows. How many will you put in one, two, or more? They slide down the tube. We put them in the tube. When it's full, we shoot them out and they fly out of the tube and they hit various places around the room.

Then the dirty marshmallows go in the garbage and we  snack on clean ones. Sometimes a little kid will manage to get one of the ones on the floor in their mouth, but that's okay. Location vocabulary abounds with the marshmallow bow, and it's so easy to get repeated practice for articulation targets.

There may not be so much obvious imagination with the marshmallow bow, but I think some clients are really good at imagining themselves as a real life archer, and you can see it in their stance as they go. Boom, boom, boom. Those marshmallows are flying around the room. Robinhood has nothing on them, and they'll comment on how the marshmallows don't hurt or break anything in the room. So there is some prediction going on.

Number five is Play-Doh, stamps and cookie cutters. I keep my eyes open for unique cookie cutters whenever I'm at a cooking store or a craft fair. Okay. I really don't need to describe Play-Doh or Cookie Cutters, but you might not be familiar with Play-Doh stamps . I have a set of sea creature Play-Doh stamps that kids love and they make a nice, solid impression in the Play-Doh when you push on them and they're easy for little hands to use.

They're easier than the cookie cutters, so they're a nice way to start playing with Play-Doh. I choose the cookie cutters for specific articulation targets, if that's my therapy goal. For language just talking about the whole process of rolling and cutting out is language rich. But to add a bit more, we use a pencil and we give the cutouts eyes and a mouth if it's an animal shape.

And I also have different sized heart shapes that we like to talk about. The big heart, little heart. The big star, little star. So we get some additional vocabulary there. And Play-Doh is full of colors, textures, shapes, pushing, rolling, cutting out, and playing with the cutouts, flying the owl, hopping the bunny, and so forth.

Some Play-Doh was even scented, so you've got some more vocabulary there if you get the scented Play-Doh. I really like the little extra step you get in symbolic play when a client can move from pretending with a stuffed animal. To pretending with a Play-Doh figure, which is more abstract. 

Speaking of abstract play, number six is play food and kitchen play. Pretending to do what adults do is moving into more sophisticated pretend play. It's more abstract. I think most play food now comes with each fruit and vegetable piece in two or more parts that you attach with Velcro. That is definitely what I'd look for if I were shopping for play food. This way they can cut the food.

I have a pot and I have a wooden spoon, and I often add that to the play so we can make soup. And my play kitchen is not big. It's a tabletop one, and I like that it's so small that I can store it in my closet and it does the job. But I know there are some fantastic kitchen play sets out there that are more elaborate, which you could also use.

So we make soup, pretend to feed puppets, go shopping or have a picnic. And that's just a short list of what you can do with food. See my simple tools video picnic fun on thespeechumbrella.com or on YouTube to see how to have the most fantastic language rich executive function building picnic activity.

The vocabulary is as endless as your food and cooking routine, both for prepositions and attributes. And the same goes for articulation targets. Number seven is potato heads. Thanks to toy story, potato heads have made quite the comeback. I have pictures of the different parts, the potato head that are laminated and velcroed.

I put them on a Velcro strip and clients choose what piece they want, and this is a great way to practice pointing and choosing mindfully. The actual pieces are in a box or in a bag, so they're out of sight and a client can focus on choosing from the picture. This little delay in gratification helps a lot of clients take the time they need to use language they already have, but they aren't used to using it.

They're just used to impulsively reaching out and taking what they want. And then because the potato head pieces have multiple choices within the same category, like they have red shoes and blue shoes, they get to practice elaborating the noun. I want the red shoes. I want the blue shoes. I want the red nose.

I want the pink nose. I'll hold up both the red and blue shoes and ask them what they want. And if they point or say that one, I pretend not to understand, and I ask them again if they want the red shoes or the blue shoes. And that's usually enough of a model for them to respond and say red or blue themselves. Or they might even say, red shoes, blue shoes. 

And after our potato heads are built, we take them on a walk and we see what happens. Will they run into a problem that they need to solve? Probably. Someone might lose a nose or an ear. I have a reel on Instagram showing how I do the picture Velcro part, so check it out at dstrattonslp on Instagram. Also, you can get the pictures in my free resource library@thespeechumbrella.com slash free.

Number eight is puppets How I love My Puppets. Over the years, I've collected quite a few. The quality ones are expensive, but I find if I buy just one or two a year, it's a doable. If I had to choose just one puppet, it would be a frog or a fish. And that's because most of my clients with autism are wary of puppets. They're wary of the texture. They don't quite know what to do with them, but they will tolerate the frog and the fish better. And I think that's because I have these toy bugs and flies that they get to eat. And there's something about being able to feed them flies and bugs. It's intriguing. And sometimes that's their first foray symbolic play is feeding the fish or the frog. Those bugs. Fish blow bubbles too much like the soap bubbles we blow. And that can be a way to engage a client with a puppet. Puppets can go in, out, over, under and around things, and they can eat things too. And then they can rub their tummy and say, mmm. They can also nibble fingers and toes, and that can be a good way to introduce puppets to clients who aren't sure about them. Sometimes they really start giggling when you have the puppet nibble their toes. Also, for those very early verbalizer animal sounds are the best.

I've noticed some puppets now come with recorder that you push on their tummy and it makes the sound, but I would not choose those. I want my clients to speak for the puppets. Puppets are also part of the play food picnic activity I mentioned earlier. 

Number nine is an oldie but goodie tinker toys. I love toys that you can build with. Along with building, I like to bring in executive function by having clients point to a picture of the piece they want. And this is much like the potato heads activity where I have them point to a picture of the potato head piece they want next. Usually I'll have a picture of the completed tinker toy model, and these usually come with your tinker toy set and you can find more online, and then clients can point to and describe the piece they want next using that picture.

So it's a bit more advanced than building a potato head because the building is more complex and they're choosing from a bigger field. But you can also simplify this pointing and choosing activity by using a model with just a few pieces and taking a picture of two pieces at a time, and having the client choose the next piece they need from the appropriate picture.

So you're gonna have several pictures with these two pieces and the next two pieces and the next two pieces. And if you build the model for the client first so they can see how you do it, and they'll understand what sequence they need, and it's really interesting to see when they point to the piece that is wrong in the sequence and you hand it to them and they have nothing to attach it to, that's kind of a light bulb moment for some of 'em.

Like, oh, I didn't want that piece. I gotta think about what I'm pointing to. This is kind of hard to explain, so check out my real Instagram called Tinker Toy Fan Plus Executive Function to see it in action. Don't underestimate the power of this activity. I actually got one of my clients consistently talking who had been largely nonverbal until I did this.

In tinker toys, colors and shapes rule as do building words like 'put in'. When I'm using tinker toys for artic we don't go into imagination so much, but if you want to foster imagination, see what you can build without a model to follow. 

And last but not least, number 10 is vehicle building sets. I cheated a bit and included two different sets here. One you build with a screwdriver and the other snaps together with magnets, and they're both very popular with my clients. Once some friends with a preschooler were visiting and I brought up the screwdriver set for him to play with, oh, he was so much in heaven. He told his parents to leave him and come back in the morning because he was so much into that toy.

The vehicles are assembled and disassembled with a battery operated screwdriver, which is so much fun. It has a car, a motorcycle, and a plane, and the other set has several mix and match magnetic pieces that are super easy to snap together. So it's a bit easier when fine motor skills are a challenge and the magnetic vehicles have a bent towards construction vehicles, cranes and trucks and so on. So kids are really into that. 

And with these vehicles, you got parts and building vocabulary and then when they are built, the magnetic vehicles are especially good for imaginative play because the dump trucks and the cranes are excellent for carrying things and moving things around. And you can put on, take off, put together, pull apart, put in.

And because these vehicles come in three pieces, there's a front and the middle and a back.

As far as cost for all these activities, the prices are all over the board. Some are a little spendy. I'm looking at you Dollhouse, but since I get so much use, I don't mind laying out some cash. The boat activity on the other hand, is about as inexpensive as you can get with Play-Doh a close second, all of which goes to show you don't need expensive toys to help children develop communication.

What you need are toys that have lots of features, that have opportunities to use many prepositions, and often these are the building toys, and that fire the imagination. They don't need to be complicated toys. Simple toys can lead to optimal outcomes when they meet this criteria. I realize it can be hard to visualize some of the activities I described.

So if you want to see more, head on over to Instagram or YouTube for a video. That wraps things up for today. If you want a transcript or links for today's and every other episode, you can find them at thespeechumbrella.com/blog. Take a minute to browse around my store and sign up for the free resource library.

I know you will find something that will help you with your kiddos. Tell your fellow therapist about the podcast, leave me a review, and let's connect on social media. I'm @dstrattonslp on Instagram and the speech umbrella on Facebook.  📍 Check out my videos on YouTube too. There's a lot of great stuff under the speech umbrella.

See you next time.