08/07/2026
Play can sometimes get overlooked as an essential way for children to learn language.
🧠 Each time you play with your child, whether it’s bubbles, chasing, peek-a-boo, or cars, important foundational language skills are being built and strengthened.
👀 Shared attention (or “joint attention”) is a foundational preverbal skill. It’s when you and your child are both focused on the same thing (a bubble, a car, a bug on the sidewalk) and you both know you’re sharing it. That moment when your child points and then looks back at your face? That’s shared attention! Kids learn words by connecting what they hear to what you’re both looking at.
🚗 Play teaches children to take turns — my turn, your turn. Rolling a car back and forth is the same rhythm as a conversation.
🫧 Whether it’s a point, a sound, or a tap on their AAC device, play gives kids something worth talking about and fun, low-pressure chances to communicate.
🗣️ Imitation is another foundational skill. Play encourages imitation of actions (covering your eyes for peek-a-boo, pretending to talk on the phone) and sounds/words (“uh oh!”, “roar”, “more”) that your child sees you do in action — verbally, with sign, pictures, or a device ❤️
👫 Social skills like sharing, waiting, and reading faces get modeled and practiced in context during play, with adults and peers.
🍵 Adding your voice to their play, through naming, describing, and wondering out loud, turns everyday fun into vocabulary growth.
🐻 Pretend play is learned by watching and playing with others. When your toddler holds a banana to their ear like a phone, that’s symbolic play (one thing standing in for another)! It’s language practice in disguise. Think of all the words you’re teaching when you’re pretending to cook! 🍳📞
❤️ You don’t need special toys or a plan. A few minutes on the floor, following what they’re already interested in, does more than you’d think. And if your child shows you they understand in other ways first, a look, a point, a gesture, their device, that all counts. Communication comes in many forms 💚
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