Early communication and language skills depend on the important work of child’s play

By Christina Knott
Watertown Daily Times

At any point during the weekday, preschoolers at schools across the north country are busy passing toy cars back and forth, baking cakes in pretend kitchens or dancing along to their favorite song.

It may look like all fun and games. But according to speech language pathologists Mary C.T. Runge and Dani E. Shirkey, the Arc of Jefferson-St. Lawrence, those preschoolers are hard at work, developing language and communication skills they’ll depend on throughout their lives.

As part of Better Speech and Hearing Month, the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) highlights the importance of communication development and the work of speech language pathologists and related professionals and their role in building a strong foundation for language and literacy, academic and social success.

“A person’s communication skills are critical at each stage of life,” ASHA states in a news release about its annual observance.

Fortunately, Runge and Shirkey say there is a simple way the parents can help foster their child’s early language and communication development — through play.

Here are fun ways parents and caregivers can help encourage their child’s early development through simple play.

SING A SONG

Singing along with your preschooler is one of the most effective ways parents can help their children learn and grow. Simple songs and nursery rhymes like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Wheels on the Bus” help infants, toddlers and young children learn the rhythms of speech, according to information on ASHA’s website. It is also a good way to teach them about different sounds and words, and hearing rhymes will help young children learn to read.

“You are doing comprehension. You are telling a story. You’re sequencing. There’s just so many things you can target just by acting out a nursery rhyme,” Runge said.

Incorporating hand movements or dance to songs and rhyme can further help build language development as they build motor skills. Children are able to wave before they can say “hi” or “bye,” Shirkey explained. Imitating actions that go with a song can help infants and children connect to others.

“So doing any sort of dancing, acting out the different plays and songs and rhymes gives kids a chance to imitate what the parent is doing on a gross motor level,” she said. “If you get to finger play, you’re working out the fine motor level. Which also would proceed oral motor (development).”

Parents who need help finding songs with dances or hand movements can find a treasure trove of videos for kids online. But Shirkey and Runge both said children get more out of nursery rhymes when it’s done with another person, rather than on a screen. Instead of letting YouTube have all the fun with your kid, parents should join in the fun too.

“Go ahead, turn off the screen and sing the song to yourselves and act them out,” Runge said.

GO OUTSIDE

While there has been less research on the benefit of outdoor time for language development, decades of research have found multiple benefits for outdoor play for children, including an increase in physical activity, independence and self-confidence as well as a decrease in stress. Outdoor play gives children a chance to shout, engage in creative play and explore. A number of studies have also found an increase in school performance with increased outdoor play.

Shirkey advises parents, “Get outside. Stay there for a long time.”

The ASHA website encourages parents and caregivers to take a nature walk with children as a way to help build vocabulary and engage with each other. Ask what they see and hear, ASHA advises. Do they feel a breeze? What do they smell? Can they find something blue or yellow? What are the birds or squirrels doing? How many sticks can they find? Which are short and which are long?

Outdoor play is a great opportunity to incorporate sensory-based exploration as well, which can strengthen their vocabulary and help children with sensory issues broaden their comfort level.

“You can get those different consistencies and textures on your hands,” said Runge. She and Shirkey also work with children who have feeding and swallowing disorders as part of the scope of their profession. “A lot of the nerves in your hands are the same nerves in your mouth. So introducing those textures through play can really help if you want to introduce a similar texture with feeding.”

Socially, playgrounds are a great way for kids to play with other children as they develop their language skills, especially for ones who haven’t had as much time with their peers as they normally would have over the past few years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Studies have also found that outdoor play has generally declined over the years. So as the cold weather begins to wane, now is a great time to head out to the backyard, take a walk around the neighborhood or visit the playground at a park.

PLAY PRETEND

Children are natural pretenders, seeming to live in a world of imagination. Again, it’s all part of their hard work of learning and growing.

The skills developed during pretend play include the areas of cognition, pragmatics of communication and language development.

Children can reenact things they’ve watched adults do, building abstract thinking and problem solving, as well as developing “theory of mind,” or the understanding of perspectives outside of one’s one experience, as explained by ASHA. In other words, pretend play helps children understand the world around them.

Playing doctor, house or school gives them a chance to step into the role of others. So how can parents help facilitate pretend play, particularly in the middle of a busy day?

One simple idea that Runge recommends is setting aside a kitchen cupboard or drawer just for children. While an adult is busy making dinner, children can join in on their own.

“If you have the space for it, I highly promote it,” said Runge. “Their kid can pull out those dishes and imitate and play as well. They just have that little cupboard or that little basket of their own, where it’s like, ‘OK, Mommy and Daddy are making this or now our sibling is making this. Let’s play along.’”

When parents have time to sit down for play with their child, Shirkey and Runge recommend meeting them at their eye level.

“Even if you’re talking to them, rather than (standing above them), kneel down or sit on the floor,” Runge said. “It just makes things more personal. It helps make stronger connections.”

“That connection shows respect,” added Shirkey.

GIVE AND TAKE

An important part of communication is give and take, the listening and sharing of information. An early model for this, explain Shirkey and Runge, are how children pass toys back and forth in mutual play.

In other words, playing catch or zooming cars back between each other is actually part of language development.

Shirkey explained how getting preschoolers to engage in reciprocal play is an important early skill for language development. “That give and take of communication kind of starts with pushing a ball back and forth or a car back and forth.

“It’s speech,” she added, “because I’m giving you the truck and you’re giving me the truck. When we communicate, I give you my words and you respond with your words. And sometimes I give them back.”

As children grow older, reciprocal play grows more complex. Children build social rules and follow patterns of play and communication to facilitate friendship.

But parents hoping to work on the early building blocks of this important aspect of development can start by simply rolling or tossing a ball to their child and holding out their hands for them to give it back.

BE OK WITH BEING SILLY

Finally, both Runge and Shirkey recommend adults not be afraid to be silly when playing with their children.

“I can’t tell you the number of things I’ve had on my head,” Shirkey laughed. Cars, spiders, shoes all go in odd places to teach under, inside, above and on.

“We learn all those kinds of things,” she said. “But it’s still play.”

Shirkey said they try to build absurdity and silliness into everything they do when working with children.

“A lot of times I’ll sing, ‘Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is full of ice cream.’”

The kids will laugh at the unexpected line. Shirkey follows with more questions: What’s your favorite flavor? How do you lick ice cream? Now, let’s make silly faces with our tongues!

“It just really opens up being silly and having fun,” she said. “You know, a lot of that being silly is weird rhymes or making up animal memes. We put the rhinoceros head on the elephant body, so now it’s a ‘rhinocerant.’”

These elements of rhyming and takings words apart, moving them around and putting them back together, they are all important for language and literacy development. But for the preschoolers Runge and Shirkey work with, it’s just fun.

“I think it just lends itself into that without really thinking about it,” Shirkey said.

Did you know?

Better Hearing and Speech Month was founded in 1927 the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and takes places each May to raise awareness about related problems and interventions.

Speech and language disorders are one of the most common treatment services in schools, with more than 1 million students nationwide receiving therapy support each year.

In schools, speech language pathologists assist students in speech sounds, spoken/written language, fluency or stuttering, cognition challenges, social communication, problems with voice production, augmentative or alternative communication and feeding or swallowing disorders.

Parents with concerns about the need for therapy services for their child can speak with their family pediatrician for a referral or contact a speech therapist directly for questions about care.

Resources

Free PDFs are available as a resource for communication skills that parents should expect to see in their child by age and tips for how to support children’s development: http://wdt.me/ashatoolkit