How to use playdough for speech & language development

Playdough is an entertaining activity for children and a valuable tool for developing their speech and language. Playdough is very accessible and can be used in many ways, such as with cutters to make shapes, or to create stories.

If your child loves playdough or you’re looking for new ways to help their speech and language development, here are some ideas.

Creating stories

Storytelling is at the heart of children’s imaginations and helps them form new ideas and learn new ways of thinking. Children can use cutters to make playdough into anything they like, such as trees, dogs, rabbits, flowers or food. You can talk with your child and start a story using the shapes you make.

For example, a child at one of our speech therapy sessions made a man with two dogs, a rabbit and three trees. She then shared a story about a man, his rabbits and a dog that went for a walk, hid behind the trees, lying flat on the ground. She was very creative, and the playdough helped develop her imagination and storytelling skills. The cutters gave her the inspiration and modelling for new ideas, and she evolved her language skills in a fun way without even realising it was therapy.

Linguistics concepts

Children can practice all types of words when playing with playdough, especially to describe the shape, texture and colour. You can help them practice words like ‘squishy’, for example, which one of the children said in our clinic. When playing, she said ‘squishy dough’, and then our therapist added another word, so she repeated and said ‘'soft squishy dough'. This is how we build up language with the children we see.

Whilst playing with playdough, you can implement linguistic concepts into conversation.

• To describe how it feels, you can say soft and hard.
• To describe the movement and parts of the dough, you can say up or down, open or close, top or bottom and empty or full.
• To describe other types of action, you can say roll, pat, chop and press.
• To describe the dough’s appearance, you can say pretty, long, thin, small, big, smooth, and rough.

Suggesting certain words whilst playing with your child can help them develop their vocabulary and understand the meaning of specific words and how they can introduce them into conversation. Your child may repeat those words or describe the playdough with particular words.

Develop imaginations

Exploring the world is a child’s playground. They’re filled with curiosity and wonder, constantly learning about new things around them and seeing the magic. Often, these are observations that as adults, we just don’t appreciate enough or ask questions about. We most likely did as children though – that’s why children ask ‘why’, ‘why’ ‘why’!

Using playdough can help develop imaginations, enhancing children’s speech and language development. When playing with playdough, they’ll come up with characters, colours, shapes and animals. Every child thinks differently and interprets playing uniquely, which will come out when they play with playdough.

You can ask them questions whilst they’re playing about what ideas they’re coming up with and add additional words to reaffirm what they’ve said to develop their language further.

If you’re concerned about your child’s speech and language development and are seeking advice, book an assessment with one of our team today and we’ll  help you to understand the support your child needs.

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