The Power of Play in Early Intervention: Tips for SLPs to Coach Parents Effectively
Hi friends! 👋🏼
I'm back with another Early Intervention topic! It's well-known that I absolutely love working with this population and I love to be able to share some of my personal experiences and advice I've picked up along the way.
Today, let's chat about the importance of play and how we can teach parents and caregivers the importance of it too! 🧸🛝
Why do we need to focus on it?
Play is how a child develops their cognitive skills and learn how their world operates. It gives them the ability to understand, develop, and manipulate their ideas about how things work in the real world!
Play in Early Intervention:
Play-based therapy is known to be the best vehicle for expanding on cognitive and language skills. Why? It can be highly motivating, fun, and promotes active engagement in a setting that is realistic for a typical toddler's day. We also see a ton of research coming out that indicates that children need a multisensory approach to learning, which is something flashcard drills simply cannot provide.
How can we help?
Once again, we are parent coaching! That means we can provide demonstrations and education on how to incorporate language into play but we should NOT be playing with the child, packing up our toys, and leaving. So many parents will tell me they don't know how to play with their child, and that is completely understandable! Read on to see the tips I would recommend.
Recommendations for Play
- Don't reinvent the wheel: Look at the type of play your client enjoys and find a way to engage with them. If they like playing with cars, try incorporating your car into theirs and mimic what they do while narrating your play or using exclamatory words or natural sounds. They like to run up and down the hall? Run up and down the hall while pretending to be different animals.
- You don't have to participate in endless play! Our sessions can look really long to parents and it can be very daunting. Aim for 15 minutes a day if that's the goal they feel they can achieve. Parents and caregivers have busy schedules too but small bursts of active engagement in joint play can make a HUGE difference.
- Day to day routines can be chaotic, so address that in your sessions. Play can be used during meal times, in the bath, in the car, and during the bedtime routine. Be flexible and find those pockets of time to be silly and connect with the child in a natural way that doesn't involve extreme planning and prep.
What other recommendations do you give to parents when encouraging play? Let us know in the comments! In case you're looking for even more learning on how to incorporate PLAY into your early intervention, be sure to check out my Early Intervention Academy for SLPs!
Happy Speeching!
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