Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Imagination play


            When our middle son was approaching two, he was barely speaking.  He just didn’t.  Because he was already under weight and under tall, he was referred to a paediatrician, then to a speech therapist. 

The therapist did one simple thing for us, though admittedly, he had started to speak more by this time.  She suggested we do more imagination play with him.  Pretend we were eating, pretend we were going to school or gramma’s house.  Pretend we were dogs, pretend we were painters, whatever.  This would cause him to have to search for and then use words to describe what he was doing. Up to this point we had given him stuff to do, apparently he just wanted to play.

This really seemed to open up his linguistic world.  You should hear the things he comes up with now, and he reads like a wonder.  He’s still under tall and under weight, but he no longer is under speaking!  And we couldn’t be more pleased.
 
All that to say, if you have a one or two year old at home, try imagination play to expose them to opportunities to use their spoken language.

8 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

My eldest son had speech problems but for years would not be referred to a speech therapist. We used to let him read into a tape recorder (as they were then called) He progressed a little then went for treatment,she asked him lots of questions to get him to talk then came one question I still cringe"What is mummy's name"?
"Mummy" he replied, What do daddy call mummy she asked "Silly Cow"
he said with an angelic smile on his face.
He is 47 yrs this year and I still remember when he was 5 yrs old.

Yvonne.

Anonymous said...

To worried parents:"Someday you'll wish they'd be quiet!"

Brandi said...

Great post! Glad you found something useful to do at home besides just sticking him in speech class alone.

Annalisa Crawford said...

Hehe, your anonymous commenter rang a bell. My second child took a while to talk, but then spoke in full sentences using incredible vocabulary that (still, aged 8) has us begging him - nicely - to be quiet, just for a moment :-)

Kate said...

Great that "faking" your way became a fun solution!

The Armchair Squid said...

Parenting is a marvelous adventure. Thanks for following and commenting. Good luck with the rest of the challenge.

Betty Alark said...

Great idea!

Children are such a joy! I remember my daughter at that age; she loved to explore and discover!

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