With so many options, choosing toys for your child can be difficult. Our speech therapists seek toys that foster engagement with others, speech sound production, and creativity in play. We recommend playing with the toys with your child whenever possible, so they can learn  how language is used to communicate and to teach the joy in back and forth social interactions! Here are some of our speech therapists’ favorite toys:

Prelinguistic Children

These are children who are communicating with gestures, facial expressions, crying, and sounds. This can be intentional or unintentional. At this stage, cause and effect toys are recommended to teach children that they can cause something to happen with their actions.

• Ball popper
• Pop Piano
• Pound-a-ball 
• Piggy Bank
• Bubbles
• Spin Stacking

Linguistic Children

These are children using  “language” to communicate- which can include pictures, communication devices, words, and signs. The SLPs here love low-tech toys or toys that “don’t do anything” Why? Because this will help children add their  own sounds to their play, seek interactions with others, and foster endless pretend play possibilities! 

• Building blocks
• Blocks
• Pretend food
• Pretend cooking
  
• Doctor kit 
• Dress up
• House play set
• Cleaning play set
• Store play set
• Farm play set