17 June 2016
 Categories: , Blog

Playing with building blocks with your child who has a delayed speech challenge enhances speech development and complements speech therapy. However, it's important to learn how you can enhance the experience for your child by using effective tactics that make the game more effective. Below are tips for building blocks games you can adopt to help you promote speech development for your child with speech delay.

Building with Friends

If your child who is experiencing delayed speech builds blocks with friends, learning will be enhanced more than if you are the only one playing with the child. Playing with friends calls for sharing and cooperation. So your child will be motivated to learn so that the game can flow smoothly.

Also, the other kids will repeatedly mention certain words and use them in sentences as they play, which will help your child in recognizing the words and their use in the game. So you may want to organize play dates for your child and have the other kids come to your home. Also, being involved in the games may help your child feel safer and confident.

Vary the Sizes and Artwork

It's best to buy building blocks of different sizes and artwork so that you can stimulate development of multiple terms and abilities. Remember that speech development is supported by other abilities, such as recognition of words and other attributes of the objects the child uses to play with. Teach Me To Talk suggests you mention the attributes of the building blocks as you play with your child, so that the child can learn the characteristics and how to express these attributes.

For instance, if you start building something with the big blocks, tell your child to pass you the big ones with emphasis on big.  You can repeat the word big, so that the child associates the size of the blocks with the word big. Also, do the same for the small ones. You may also want to alternate use of big and small blocks to help your toddler learn the difference between big and small blocks.

Be Creative

Varying the way you play with the building blocks can make the game more interesting for your child and enhance learning. For example, you can use your child's favourite toys to play along with the blocks. Hiding a few small toys under the blocks or behind the blocks and encouraging your child to find them is one way you can make the game more interesting.

Make sure you mention the name of the toy. For instance, if the toy is a monkey, then you can congratulate your child for finding the monkey. Every time you repeat the word monkey or other names, your child will find it easy to remember. You may also want to encourage your child to repeat the words after you.

Building blocks games are great for promoting speech development for late talkers. You can use the tips above to enhance your building blocks games in a way that promotes speech development.

For more information, contact professionals like communiKIDS.