Improve Your Toddler’s Speech and Language Skills With These Toys Today!
Are you wanting to improve your toddler’s speech? Maybe you’re just hoping to keep them on track for meeting those all important milestones? There are a million and one educational toys out on the market? How do you know the right ones to choose? As a speech therapist mama, I know the feeling, but honestly, the secret is that there is no “right” toy to buy for your child’s communication growth. The only toy they need is YOU!
Having an adult engage, model language, and take part in back and forth play at any age will help with communication skills. Your kiddos need your attention and models to truly grow and learn. To learn more specifics, check out my article: Ways to Play To Improve Speech and Language Skills.
Okay, yes an engaged grown up is the most important thing, but what if grandparents are already planning to buy toys? Maybe some are better than others? Absolutely. Below I have listed my top 10 favorite toys that I have used in therapy with my students and clients throughout the years. Many of these toys can be used for years in creative ways.
- Stacking Toys/Cups
- I love stacking toys because the possibilities for play and beyond are endless! You can talk about putting them “in, on, over, under, next to.” You can describe the colors and sizes. “Let’s put this little one in this big one!” I like these cups because they are silicone and BPA free (important for all of the littles who put everything in their mouths!) and can even be used as a novel way to present food!
- Baby Dolls
- Girls and boys alike can benefit from having a baby doll. They can be especially helpful if your child has a baby sibling. Taking care of two or more little ones is exhausting and trying to find ways to engage and play can be tricky especially with a new baby at home. Baby dolls can come in to save the day! Giving your child their own baby to take care of while you take care of your new baby is a great way to not only help the older sibling feel involved but also to model behaviors and language!
- Verbs: “Now it’s time to feed the baby. Let’s feed your baby too! Pour the milk into the bottle! Rock the baby, pat your baby’s back.
- Cause and Effect Toys
- Toys like this hammer and ball maze are great at teaching basic cause and effect. When I do X, Y happens. Once your child has an understanding of causse and effect, they will better be able to understand the back and forth that it takes to take part in both play and communicative turn taking. We have a similar toy in our house and both of my kiddos still enjoy playing with it.
- Colors: “I have the blue ball!” “Red! This ball is red!” For older kiddos you can ask which one they want. If they are able to name it fabulous, if not, have them touch the one they want and you label the color. “Oh, you want the green ball!”
- Directions: “Up, up, up, I put the ball up on top.” “Watch it go down the maze!”
- Toys that grow with your baby
- The Crawl Around Car is one of my favorite gifts for new parents. We pulled ours out for our daughter at around 6 months old and now 3 years later, both kiddos still love and use it! There’s so many things to talk about and ways to engage with it. Lots of cause and effect features and we already talked about the benefits of that. I really love the motor aspect as well. Baby can crawl, cruise, and eventually walk around the car.
- Shapes: “Where is the square? Let’s put it in!” Look, I have the (pause and wait) circle! You’re right!
- Verbs: “Let’s beep the horn!” “I see you sitting in the car!”
- The possibilities really are endless with this toy.
- Books!
- Last, but certainly not least, books are one of the most amazing tools for improving your child’s communication. I know it can be hard when you’ve read Llama Llama for the 50th time that week, (Speaking from experience!) but the repetition and just the act of being read to is massively beneficial for your child’s language development. Each time they hear the story, they connect more meaning to the vocabulary, are presented with phonemic (sound) awareness, and are taking part in basic back and forth social communication with the adult doing the reading. When reading books to your child, remember, your kiddo is not looking for perfection. Some parents are very conscious of their own reading skills. Do the best you can at your pace. Pause and let your child ask questions or comment on what they see. My favorite phrase to use when reading a familiar book is “What do you notice today?” Oftentimes, there are details in the pictures or words that even you haven’t noticed before!
- Some of my favorites to read over and over are:
- I love you Through and Through– This is great for understanding basic body and emotional vocabulary. Lots of opportunities for parents to work on their dramatic skills. 🙂
- The Pout-Pout Fish– The message about changing your attitude is fabulous and I love the rhythm of the writing. You can make it into a little song with the fun “bluuub, bluuub, bluuub” as a refrain. There’s an entire series of these books!
- LLama Llama Red Pajama– or Llama LLama Rojo Pijama My llama loving babe usually requests a LLama Llama book before bed. I love the rhyming and pattern of the stories. There’s usually a big emotion in the middle and some sort of resolution. The books in this series are great for talking to your older toddlers about big emotions and what to do with them. Within the stories, there opportunities to elaborate on vocabulary, what is in the pictures, and my favorite is guessing how the character is feeling based on their face.
I hope you find these suggestions helpful in your quest to improve your child’s language skills. Remember, progress takes time. Kiddos work on their own schedules. If you do have lingering concerns about your child’s development in any area, speak with your pediatrician or seek out an evaluation by qualified personnel such as a Speech Language Pathologist.