Play is a critical component in early childhood, as it encourages speech, language, cognitive, social, emotional and physical development. Children learn best when they’re engaged, motivated, and having fun. Don’t we all? Play allows children to explore the world around them and learn new skills in a comfortable, low-stress environment. The best part about it is… play can happen anywhere!
Research shows the profound positive impacts play has on a child’s development. More specifically, play can help:
- Support pre-linguistic skills, such as:
- Imitation
- Eye contact
- Turn-taking
- Joint attention
- Boost social-pragmatic skills
- Supports conversation skills
- Encourages positive interactions with others
- Improve cognitive abilities
- Improves problem-solving, reasoning, and memory
- Encourages creativity and imagination
- Support socio-emotional skills
- Builds confidence
- Helps self-regulation and independent thinking
- Increase attention skills
- Improves participation through motivating activities
- Encourages listening and processing skills
- Support speech and language development in a meaningful environment.
- Increased opportunities for language use and practice of speech sounds
- Encourages vocabulary development (nouns, verbs)
- Encourage meaningful connections with real life events.
- Assists in generalization of skills to the natural environment.
While there are no wrong ways to play, it is important to note that play may not come as easy for some children, especially those with language and other developmental delays. Because play facilitates language development, it’s critical that we both encourage play and have awareness of general play difficulties. By having awareness, we can better identify children who may need extra support in order to improve developmental outcomes.
General signs of play difficulties can include:
- Reduced interest in other children.
- Difficulty interacting with others in the same play area.
- Becomes overwhelmed by new play routines and enjoys the same routines.
- For example, a child prefers to play with a toy the same way every time.
- Focuses on parts of a toy rather than the toy as a whole.
- Difficulty exploring new toys.
- Overall limited use of gestures (i.e. waving, pointing, blowing a kiss).
- Difficulty sharing in experiences with others.
- For example, a child demonstrates little to no looking back and forth between a person and the toy to share in the experience.
- Sensitivities to different sensory experiences during play (i.e. noises/music or lights on toys)
- Seeks sensory experiences during play (i.e. putting bright lights on toys up to their eyes).
- Difficulty engaging in imaginative or pretend play.
- For example, a child has difficulty pretending to feed a baby doll.
While this is not an exhaustive list, you know your child best! If something appears difficult for your child, completing an evaluation with a speech-language pathologist can be beneficial. Through this evaluation, an SLP identifies your child’s strengths, difficulties, and learning styles, as well as collaborates with you to establish a plan of care with your child’s individualized goals and supports in place to best help them.
Interested in more about play? Be sure to stop back for Part 2 of this series, where specific play milestones and ways to facilitate play skills will be discussed!
Check out some of our other blog posts featuring this area of development:
The earlier children receive this support, the more likely they are to progress in their skills. If you have any concerns about your child’s play development, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!
Northern Virginia
Phone: 703-470-6957
Email: info@owlstherapy.com
Philadelphia’s Main Line
Phone: 610-579-0914
Email: philadelphia@owlstherapy.com