The best way to enrich your child’s communication is to just PLAY. An idea could be to make some playdough and use it to enrich your child’s communication while you play together. Don’t try to incorporate all these ideas in one play session. Pick one or two things and try to use them during a session. Remember, have fun!
Speech Development
- Practice your child’s speech sounds (if needed) by making items that start with or represent the sound that needs practice (snake says sssss; fish starts with ffffffffffff; for example)
Receptive/Expressive communication
- Practice prepositions by putting/hiding playdough creations in, on, under, beside, behind, in front, on top, over, for example
- Describe your creations by talking about its color, size, shape, looks, feelings, for example
- Compare items. Which one is taller, smaller, skinnier, longer etc.
- Talk about the function of the things you create - what do we use for drinking? Painting? Etc.
- Make something with a piece missing. Hmm, I seem to have forgotten something on my cat…
Linguistic processing
Pragmatics/Social Communication
- Make believe and tell stories together using playdough made items or characters. Take turns adding something to the story
- Retell a book you have read together using playdough, taking turns to add more details
- Share colors of dough and tools used, using language to get the things needed.
Other ideas:
- use cookie cutters, plastic cups as “rolling pins”, and popsicle stick knives to cut your dough
- Make sure you limit the number of “tools” you have on the table so you will have to use communicate to share
- You could “sabotage” the situation a little by placing some of the tools out of your child’s reach. This will be encourage them to have to ask for things. You can model the correct way to ask when you need something from your child that is out of your reach.
- These ideas could also be used with slime, sand, or foam as well