Why are we playing in speech therapy? Playing in speech therapy isn’t just about the toys. When a child is engaged in active play, they are building cognitive skills, developing their social skills, working on fine motor development, and, most importantly, improving their communication!
Playing in Speech – Play Based Learning
In play based therapy, speech or language activities are planned around preferred toy(s) and/or activities. Play based follows the child’s lead and encourages communication based on their interactions and engagement in the presented activities. Considering parent perspective, it looks like we are ‘just playing’ with the little ones; seemingly wasting their time. Parents simply don’t realize that we are targeting specific goals and using techniques to encourage speech and language.
Empowering Parents & Caregivers
When parents raise concerns or ask questions, it becomes an opportunity to educate and empower. Demonstrate to the parent ways they can play with the children, talk about the goals, and provide strategies they can use to encourage their child’s play development. As therapists, we have to remember that it’s easy for us to get into our groove of doing things and forget that the parents might not completely understand what we are doing.
Providing a little context and explaining can go a loooong way.
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