The Role of Play in Language Development

Play is a vital component of language development. Through play, children learn to express themselves, understand social cues, and develop vocabulary. Playhouses like those from 2MamaBees offer rich opportunities for fostering speech and language skills in engaging and meaningful ways.  As an SLP, I encourage parents to partake in activities that are meaningful and can be utilized in natural settings and these playhouses do just that.

1. Enhancing Language Development with 2MamaBees Playhouses

Playhouses from 2MamaBees can enhance language development by:

• Promoting Role-Playing: These sets often mimic real-life scenarios (e.g., kitchen, market). Children engage in role-playing, which encourages them to use language in context, practice new vocabulary, and explore conversational skills.
• Encouraging Interaction: Playhouses are designed for multiple children, fostering cooperative play. This interaction can lead to rich conversations, turn-taking, and negotiation skills.
• Stimulating Questions and Descriptions: As children play, they naturally ask questions about the items or scenarios. Parents and caregivers can encourage descriptive language by prompting them to explain their actions or the roles they are playing.

2. Specific Play Activities to Encourage Speech and Communication

Certain activities can significantly enhance speech and communication skills:

• Imitative Play: Use figurines or dolls in a playhouse to act out stories. Encourage children to imitate dialogues, expanding their vocabulary and understanding of sentence structure.
• Narrative Building: Ask children to create stories using the playhouse. This encourages them to articulate ideas, sequence events, and develop narrative skills.
• Labeling and Describing: Encourage children to label items in the playhouses or describe what they see and do. This builds vocabulary and descriptive language.
• Collaborative Games: Engage in games that require following instructions or taking turns, reinforcing listening skills and the ability to communicate needs and actions.

3. Examples of Play-Based Language Development

• Small group play: Utilizing a 2MamaBees Aviana Gourmet Play Kitchen during play, children can be encouraged to take on roles (chef, customer) and articulate their actions. This will improve vocabulary and conversational turn-taking as well as encourage children to utilize more complex sentence structures as they become more comfortable playing together. 
• Home Play: A parent can engage in play with a 2MamaBees Aviana Gourmet Play Kitchen. They can have the child create a shopping list and describe items that they want the parent to guess. Through this type of play, the child will expand their vocabulary and utilize new words in context during interactions.  This also allows for generalization to the natural environment.  So when the child goes grocery shopping in a real supermarket they have topics and vocabulary that they have already used to create a conversation in a natural learning environment.
• Therapeutic Setting: An SLP can use 2MamaBees themed playhouses in therapy sessions. By structuring activities around the playhouses, the SLP can encourage the child to express wants and needs, engage in dialogue, and follow multi-step instructions over several sessions.

Playhouse like those from 2MamaBees provide a dynamic platform for enhancing speech and language development through engaging, interactive play. By integrating language-rich activities into play, children not only enjoy their experiences but also build essential communication skills that will serve them throughout their lives.  The playhouses from 2MamaBees bridge the gap between play and practical life allowing for those experiences at play to translate into real life situations.

About Gina Grandchamp-Milan, Speech Language Pathologist

Check out Gina's website here: https://www.southflspeech.com/.

Follow Gina Grandchamp-Milan on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/southfloridaspeechsolutions/

Gina Grandchamp-Milan, owner of South Florida Speech Solutions, founded her organization with a mission to bring you personalized speech language therapy while also educating its community on preventative and treatment measures to help patients achieve their full potential. All while helping their parents and/or caregivers navigate through the speech language disorder journey.