Speech and language therapy sessions with young learners can be so challenging (the toddler energy, the tantrums) and so rewarding (the progress, growth, and play).

Years ago, I went from working exclusively with older students (as a school SLP) to working with a mix of school-aged students and toddlers/preschoolers. The learning curve for me was a steep one as I learned how to engage with young children and build their language. I found out pretty early that toddlers wouldn’t sit for a typical school-aged lesson I might teach, and that sessions for young students looked nothing like the language sessions I ran for older students.

This post will cover the things that have helped me most when it comes to working with young students. We will describe verbal routines and what using them in language sessions looks like. I’ll also share my favorite toys for working with this age. If you are new to working with young students, this will start you off with lots of play ideas and routines you can use with your students this week.

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Tips to Start

Some of my biggest tips for working with young children in speech therapy are to:

Develop verbal routines
Build a trusting relationship
Give it time
Use play and daily routines that are engaging and motivating for the child

Troubleshooting & More Tips for Success

When you can, start with play and follow the child’s lead
Be patient and build up rapport, it’s pretty common for students to be shy or not talk to you at first (I know this is happening when parents say “well, they babble all the time at home)
If the child talks at home, but not in sessions with you, building play routines and building rapport with the child is the therapy. Many times when I’m building a relationship with the child, I feel like it’s just working up so that we can do “real speech therapy,” but I’ve reminded myself that for young students, building up trust and routines is “real therapy.”
As an SLP, I know you will have had a hearing screening as a part of your evaluation. If you are concerned about possible hearing loss, you may want to refer the child to an audiologist for a hearing evaluation.
This post doesn’t focus on Autism and language development. If you want to know about that topic, check out the SLP Happy Hour Podcast, including episodes: 30, 98, and 99.

What are Verbal Routines?

Verbal Routines can be play routines where the play is done in a certain order, modeling certain words each time.

Vet Clinic (Example 1)

Using a toy veterinary clinic with doors and keys, practice the sequence: knock on the door, it’s locked, get the key, open the door

School Bus Toy (Example 2)

Using a toy bus, have small figurines line up to get on the bus, practice the sequence: open the door, come on in, here you go (give ticket), sit down, lets go

The routines can have as few or as many steps as is appropriate for your student. You can also add variety within this routine to model more words, but a stable verbal routine is a great place to start. These examples have a lot of words, I typically would pick 3-5 targets to model in each play routine, but again - it depends on the client.

Building repetitive and predictable play routines can be an effective way to help a child with a language delay build their language skills. Once a routine is established, the child will understand the order of play, and will anticipate the word or phrase you are going to use. This anticipation will help them gesture or use a new word.

Toddler Toys for Language Sessions

When it comes to getting started, I know it’s helpful when I can picture the therapy, so today I’ll share my top 10 favorite toys to build language with late talkers with examples of how to use each. Of course there are many more ways to play with each of these toys - the following are just examples to get you started.

My 10 Favorite Toys for Late Talkers

Large Blocks - Blocks are a great toy to build play routines and model words such as “up” when stacking and “boom” when knocking a block tower down. Use blocks large enough that when they are stacked on each other they are close to the size of a young child. This makes building block towers (and knocking them down) even more fun!

Dinosaur Blocks . Zoo Animals Blocks

Books - Books with simple language and repetitive words are best to facilitate early language. A few of my favorites books are High Five Animals, Touch and Feel books, Fuzzy Furry Ouch.

Trains and Tracks - It’s fun when trains (on tracks) derail (model “whoa”), making your own train station or repair shop and more. Trains can also be used to model phrases such as put it on, got it, oh no a crash, they fell off, and let’s do it again.

Cars, Ramps, & Tunnels - Small cars are a client favorite, and I often make tunnels with a paper towel tube or make my own ramps with books on a stack and one at a 45 degree angle, making the cars go down. Cars can be used to model exclamatory words like “vroom” and “uh oh” and words and phrases such as ready, set, go, get it out, let’s go fast, oh no it fell down, watch out, it’s a crash, let’s go slow, drive in, and get out. You can also get out a shallow container and fill it with soap and water and use a washcloth to wash them while modeling words such as clean, dirty, more and done.

School Bus Toy - The Fisher Price bus is a great toy to model “The Wheels on the Bus'' song. You can also have people get on and off the bus (with or without tickets), have the bus break down or fall over, and have the bus drive to school.

Small Figurines - Small figurines, such as the Fisher Price Little People, can be used for a variety of different imaginative play routines such as: getting on and off the bus, actions (i.e. jump over a log), and pretend play with bandaids (model “boo boo” and “ouch”). Using multiple figurines also means we can get multiple repetitions in play. For example, I may set out a pretend log and have each figurine “hop over!” If I have ten figurines, I get to model that ten times.

Ball Toys - Ball mazes, ball ramps, and pound-the-ball toys are popular with this age group. While playing with ball toys you can model: go down, ___ (color) ball, and that was fast!

Toys with Keys and Locks - Toys with keys and doors that open such as a vet clinic toy and garage toys are so motivating for young learners. With these toys you can model words and phrases such as: open, close, turn, get the key, put it in, turn the key, and open the door.

Bubbles - Bubbles can be used to model so many words and/or phrases such as: pop the bubbles, tap the bubbles, kick the bubbles, blow them high, blow them low, blow a big one, blow a little one.

Pretend Play (houses, ships etc) items - I’ve got a ship, a few houses, a treehouse, a car garage with an elevator. Bringing out these items often means I can model language and follow the child’s lead. For example, with the play ship I bring in some toy sharks, magna-tiles to make the pool and the water, and sometimes we say “let’s take the ship under the ocean” and blow bubbles.

Want more ideas? Here’s my toddler toy recommendations

Model without Expectation

When you are first building these routines, your client may say nothing and that is OK. Continued modeling is effective, but it takes time. If your client is not saying words, try pairing a word with a gesture (i.e. phew with your hand on your head as you chase around the room). You can also try adjusting the pace and melody of your voice to draw attention to the word.

Resource

If you want to know more about how to support kids ages 2-5 who are late talkers, check out the ebook I wrote. It’ll help you understand analytic language development (from pre-intentional communication to first words and phrases), and it comes with a parent homework packet that I actually use as lesson ideas. Each page is a word, a parent coaching strategy, and ways to incorporate that modeled word into play and routines.