Favorite toys for early intervention/speech development

Recommendations for toys you can use in early intervention from one of our certified speech-language pathologists.

Farm Animal Set:

Target expressive language by:

-Using environmental sounds: moo, oink-oink, nay, bah
-Producing other “fun” noises like: pretending the animal is eating/drinking (the sillier you are, the more likely you are to get imitations!)
-Producing VC/CV/CVC words like: cow, pig, sheep, goat, up, down, go, in, out… & see if your child will imitate!

Target receptive language by:

-Identifying animals (e.g. show me the horse)
-Giving simple directions like: put the pig in the barn

Nesting Blocks:

Target expressive language by:

-Withholding the blocks allowing the child to request for “more”
-Stacking the blocks and repeat: “up, up, up!”
-Using exclamatory language, like: “Wow! So big!”, “Uh-oh, they fell down”, “Boom!”, etc.

Target receptive language by:

-Identifying colors/pictures on the blocks
-Following directions: put on top, push down, clean up blocks, etc.

Popper Toy:

Target expressive language by…

-Withholding the toy allowing the child to request for: “more” OR “ball”
-Working on simple CV/VC/CVC combinations, like: up, pop, down.

Courtney Johnson, M.S., CCC-SLP
Pediatric Speech Therapist
courtneyjohnson@kidtherapy.org