Importance of Play Skills

Aamina Shakoor, Speech Pathologist, Change for Life.

Why are Play Skills Important for Speech and Language?

Play skills are significantly important when it comes to a child’s speech and language development. Play provides some of the earliest opportunities for a child to develop their social skills as well as forming symbolic relationships. These areas allow children to later develop higher-language functions.

 Play allows children to learn to navigate and react to their environment. Play skills are also foundational for the development of higher-level speech and language functions, such as conversational turn-taking and problem-solving. Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth.

How to Facilitate Language Development Through Play

Play activities are an important part of your child’s life, and your child will want you to be a part of these activities. This is also an opportunity to help your child develop important language skills in fun and supportive situations.

Pepper and Weitzman (2004) recommend the following strategies:

Follow your child’s lead

An individual’s interest level often determines how engaged he becomes in the activity. Therefore, it is important to become observers of your child’s play and engage them in play activities that they find interesting. Increased child engagement allows greater opportunities for language acquisition.

Practice turn taking

Establishing successful turn-taking routines will facilitate social and communicative skill development in young children. Turn taking is a skill that can easily be promoted through play with children of any age. Offering a brief pause when it is his turn will increase your child’s initiation, communication, and independence.

Modelling language

Modelling language for your child provides exposure to new vocabulary and correct grammar while speaking. Play is an excellent opportunity for a child to attach meaning to words and build vocabulary. Providing accurate language input can include commenting about what you or your child are doing, adding a word or phrase to the child’s short phrases, exposing your child to synonyms, or by modelling the correct sentence structure.

Read books together

Books are filled with opportunities to facilitate language skills. While reading stories that are familiar to your child, you can develop speech, language, and memory skills. Expose your child to a variety of books and watch to see what books he/she prefers. By following your child’s lead, you will capture his attention. Initially, you should read books with simple pictures and simple text. Consider board books, pop-up books, books with textures, and other interactive books.