Top 10 Recommended Toys for Speech and Language Development
Top 10 Recommended Toys for Speech and Language Development
As a speech language pathologist, I am often asked what toys or activities I recommend for speech and language development for speech or language impaired children ages 2-5. In my previous Blog Post I talked about toy selection. I wanted to provide you with some toys and links that I use in my therapy sessions and that I find work well in eliciting receptive and expressive language skills. The toys I have chosen for this list are open ended, play based and can target many goals at one time (including speech sound and language goals!)
Included in this list are some of my favorites (I could list 50 more!). You know your child best and as I said in my previous post you are your child’s BEST toy, and you know your child better than anyone. Consider your child’s interests and use their curiosity in specific toys and activities to steer your decisions.
(**Some of the toys contain small parts for 2 and 3 year olds and must be supervised by an adult).
ALL PICTURES ARE LINKED Soooo… Click on a picture to see more about the specific toy
(Please note that this post contains affiliate links and any purchase made through these links will award me a small commission -at absolutely no extra cost for you)!
1) Farm set
Farm Sets with animals and people are great to work on prepositions like “in, out, up, down” and verbs “eat, go, come, stop” in addition to animal labels and sounds. Children who are minimally verbal can often imitate animal sound and this provides them with a play based opportunity for that!
2)Blocks
Any type of block set provides an open ended learning and communication experience for your child. I really like these soft blocks to reduce noise and injury and kids love to put the round peg blocks through the holes encouraging verbs like “through, out, in, stuck”. With colored blocks you can also work on sorting, naming and pointing to colors, shapes and sizes. Some early core words and sounds to work on are “uhoh” when pushing a tower over or “up” or “on” each time you put a block on the tower. A great storage option is in old comforter bag or a pillowcase with a tie!
3) Play House with People and Props
Similar to the farm, a play house with people can target prepositions (in, on, out, up, down)and verbs (go, come, stop, pee pee, poop, eat, sleep….). With the different people you can also work on pronouns (he, she, they, him, her, them) and family members names (Daddy, Mama, Grandma, and proper nouns -the names of sister, brother, friends). A playhouse also lends itself to learning names of rooms and furniture in the home. There are tons of playhouses with people on the market!
4) Potato Heads
I like to find these at yard sales and online mom’s groups. I get collections of different potato head items all around (even the Dollar store and pharmacy stores have them). Try to get them with a case for storage or pick up a plastic container to store all the potato extras!
These are great for working on pronouns, body parts, family names, and sizes. To work on specific sounds, I name each potato with a sound that the child is working on (i.e working on the /k/ sound, I might name one of the potatoes “Ken” and the other “Kiki”). Kids also work on fine motor skills pushing the body parts into the holes on the potatoes.
5) Cars with Garages or Ramps
You can get cars and ramps pretty much anywhere there are toys. I like the above set for the variety of language it can elicit. Kids love to hide items inside of containers and this set works great for that in play. Originally intended to work on numbers, colors and sizes, you can also work on putting different color cars into the garages and work on “no”, “yes”, and “uhoh”. Take a book or box and make a ramp for cars to “go” “down” and “up” to work on those concepts. Stacking the garages on top of each other and “pushing” down is so fun for kids in addition to playing hide and seek with the cars and the boxes.
6) Play Food set or Baking Set
You can find play food sets all over the place. I like these sets particularly because they have velcro so the child can cut and put back together to work on those fine motor skills. Working on naming and pointing to foods kids love to make meals for adults. Some core words to work on are “cut, push, pull, make, on, off, open, close, out, in”. It’s fun to pair adult real cooking items in play (a big pot, wooden spoons, spatula) and real foods (potato, apple etc.) and make soup!
7) Baby Dolls and Accessories
You probably already have this toy (Baby with accessories), but I had to include it! It’s perfect to work on verbs “eat, poop, pee, sleep, drink, clean, change”, vocabulary like “stinky, help, see, bath, bottle, spoon…”, and body parts. This also encourages pretend play!
8) Ball poppers
This is a great stocking stuffer and there are all kinds of animals you can choose from for these ball poppers (The balls are quite small so this needs to be monitored by an adult). Simple words that can be worked on are “pop, push, squeeze, up, out, go, where…”. I often pair this toy with bubbles when working on the /p/ and /b/ sounds with minimally verbal kids.
9) Learning Resources Toys Picnic Basket, Surprise Party Presents, Rock and Gem Surprise
These Learning Resources toys and activities are so engaging for kids and target numerous goals through play. Here we are with the toy inside a container again- and kids LOVE it. My kids have really enjoyed cracking open the rocks to reveal the gems. Working on colors and shapes with all of these toys as well as prepositions, new vocabulary (foods, animals) and core words like “open, close, help, out, hide and find”. The language opportunities are endless!
10) Magnet Tiles
Magnet tiles are like blocks: open ended, tons of language opportunities and fun. This set is one of many that I found. I even saw some at Aldi’s grocery store this weekend. You will want at least 32 pieces for building. Kids can make anything from boxes to castles. I love to hide things inside the boxes. You can also use washable markers to write on the tiles and work on specific sounds. Shapes, colors and sizes can be targeted also. I recommend buying a plastic storage container to keep them all in one place!
11) Critter Clinic
Ok- I know I said Top 10 toys, but this one is a bonus! I picked mine up at a yard sale years ago! Different color keys open up different color doors and you can put anything you want the child to work on inside the doors. This toy is a favorite of speech pathologists because of the versatility of it. It is intended to be a vet clinic, but you can make it whatever your child is interested in (i.e. a school, a barn, a house, a town).Vocabulary that this can elicit includes “open, close, stuck, hide, in, and out”. You can put speech sound picture cards in the doors also to work on your child’s targeted sounds
Since I wanted to keep the list short, I won’t add anymore now (maybe in another post,
But…. I can’t make a list for the Top Recommended Toys for Speech and Language Development without mentioning these:
Books
Puzzles
Bubbles
Play do
Balls
Tunnel
Play kitchen
Pots, pans, spoons, cups, tongs
I will be doing another Blog post about some of these toys and activities also, so stay tuned and check into my Blog often!
Thanks for being here!
CONNECT THROUGH PLAY
SpeechieTrish
