Let’s talk about play-based therapy.

I have led many speech therapy sessions while seated at a table, looking at picture books, and making crafts. Sometimes, that is exactly the kind of therapy a child needs to make progress in their communication. 

I have also provided therapy to many children while climbing, swinging, and sliding on a jungle gym, racing around on a tricycle, and jumping on a trampoline. In my experience, most of the time that is the kind of therapy a child needs to make progress in their communication. 

When we are playing together, a child is already engaged, already interested and usually attentive, so the concepts we are working on, whether it’s putting words together, saying them more clearly, or even understanding what they mean, are more likely to “stick”. Play-based therapy also gives me a much better idea of a child’s true strengths. I often see things in play, like how many words she really uses, the patterns of his speech, the different ways they communicate beyond words alone, that I may never see in a structured table-top activity. 

SLPs go to grad school and learn an awful lot about how to support children with communication impairments. We learn about how my times a child should practice a sound and how to make the practice more complex. We learn how many and what kinds of words to start with for a child who’s not speaking as much as is expected. We learn how to write goals, how to plan a therapy session, how to pick just the right toys to work on our chosen vocabulary. But do you know who doesn’t learn those things? The kids.

Kids show up for therapy, usually, ready to do what they do best - play. They see a toy and want to explore it, maybe even create a story with it. They see a jungle gym and want to climb, slide, swing, and more. Rarely do they see a table with a set of pictures on top and get excited about naming what they see with perfect sounds. 

Many kids show up for therapy with little bodies that are not yet in a learning state. Some are so wiggly, some are wandering without knowing what they need, and some are so overstimulated that they simply can’t focus just yet. 

So what we SLPs learn is how to follow the child’s lead and support their communication in ways that keep them fully engaged. And that means that, if we bring out toy cars and a kiddo isn’t interested or can’t sit still to roll them around and practice “go, go, go!”, then we hop on a pair of tricycles, zoom around the room, and practice “go, go, go!”... or “beep, beep!”... or even  “vroom!”. It means that sometimes we sing and dance, and sometimes we sit back and be quiet. And it means that even as we’re teaching the child, we’re learning about the child.