Think like an SLP: Toy Shopping

With the holiday gift-giving season upon us, many parents are looking for new and exciting toys to buy for their little ones.  Often, parents are looking for toys that might elicit more language and develop conversation or turn-taking skills.  

There are many companies out there now that specialize in "special" educational toys, and while they do have some items that are hard to find at local retailers, they don't always need to take the place of what you can find on the shelves of the big-box stored.  

When looking at toys, think about what vocab/concepts/sounds you can easily associate with that toy. Are the words simple enough for a child to try and approximate or say completely? Are there many different words that can be associated with that toy, or only 2-3. How can you as the adult 'control' the toy while playing together, so that you can sabotage the play scenario and elicit more language?

Depending on your child's level of language, a tea set may be a great investment. You can easily target early developing consonant sounds (p,b,m,n,h,t) and open vocal tract vowels (ah, oh, uh)....pot, hot, more, pour, put, in, out, open, mine, tea, mmmm, no, none, on, my, me, mama/mom/mommy

This is just a suggestion to get you started thinking differently about toys and how you might play with them with your little ones.  Happy Shopping!