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Play Goals In Speech Therapy: Examples and Resources

Play is a valuable component of speech therapy for kids. Learn more about play based activities for use in speech therapy. Includes simple and effective examples of play goals in speech therapy.

speech therapist and child playing a game

Play Based Activities For Speech Therapy

Play activities in speech therapy are a great way to support language development, social skills, cognitive growth, and emotional expression. These activities are especially effective for young children, as they provide a natural and engaging way to practice communication skills.

Below are some play-based activities that can be used in speech therapy sessions to address different goals:

1. Pretend Play / Imaginative Play

Objective: Develop expressive language, vocabulary, and social skills.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Toy Kitchen Play: Use play food and utensils to pretend to cook, serve meals, and feed dolls or action figures. Encourage the child to name food items, use verbs (cook, eat, serve), and ask questions (“Do you want some soup?”).
    • Grocery Store: Set up a “store” with pretend money, food, and shopping carts. The child can practice asking for items (“Can I have the milk?”) and responding (“Here’s your milk!”).
    • Doctor or Vet Play: Use doctor kits or stuffed animals to role-play doctor visits. This can include questions about symptoms (“Where does it hurt?”) and actions (“The teddy bear needs a band-aid”).

Goal Focus: Vocabulary building, sentence structure, social communication (requests, comments, turn-taking).

2. Storytelling and Book Reading

Objective: Build narrative skills, comprehension, and vocabulary.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Story Sequencing: Use pictures or cards that represent different parts of a story (beginning, middle, end). Ask the child to put the pictures in order and tell the story, or read a story together and discuss the sequence.
    • Interactive Books: Use books with flaps, textures, or buttons (e.g., Lift-the-Flap books) to encourage engagement. Pause while reading to ask questions like “What do you think will happen next?” or “What is the character feeling?”
    • Story Creation: Have the child create their own story using toys, pictures, or story dice. Encourage the use of complete sentences and varied vocabulary.

Goal Focus: Expressive language, sequencing, comprehension, storytelling.

3. Building / Construction Play

Objective: Develop prepositions, sequencing, and descriptive language.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Building Blocks: Use Lego bricks or other building toys to create structures. As the child builds, encourage them to describe the action (e.g., “Put the red block on top,” “The blue block is under the green one”).
    • Ramps and Cars: Use toy cars and ramps to create a race track or obstacle course. This activity promotes the use of prepositions (on, under, in front of) and action verbs (roll, crash, jump).

Goal Focus: Spatial awareness, prepositions, descriptive language, sequencing.

4. Art and Craft Activities

Objective: Support fine motor skills, following directions, and creative expression.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Drawing and Labeling: Have the child draw pictures (e.g., a house, family, or favorite animal) and describe the picture. Encourage them to label objects (“That’s the door,” “The dog is brown”) and use adjectives.
    • Cutting and Pasting: Provide materials for the child to cut out pictures from magazines or colored paper. Ask them to describe the items as they work (“This is a green leaf,” or “I’m cutting the circle”).

Goal Focus: Vocabulary expansion, following directions, descriptive language.

5. Board Games and Card Games

Objective: Improve turn-taking, social skills, and understanding of game-related vocabulary.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Simple Board Games: Games like Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, or Connect Four provide opportunities for turn-taking and using social phrases (“Your turn,” “I go first,” “Let’s play again”). The child can also practice counting, colors, and following rules.
    • Memory Match: Use a set of cards with pictures and have the child match them. As they match, encourage the use of words like “I found it!” or “It’s a dog!”
    • Simon Says: A classic game for practicing listening skills and following directions. It’s a fun way to practice body parts (“Touch your head”), actions (“Jump up”), and prepositions (“Put your hands on your knees”).

Goal Focus: Social interaction (turn-taking, following rules), vocabulary, following directions.

6. Sensory Play

Objective: Develop sensory awareness, vocabulary, and fine motor skills.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Playdough Play: Encourage the child to create shapes, animals, or people using playdough. This can help develop both fine motor skills and descriptive language (“The ball is round,” “The snake is long”).
    • Sensory Bins: Fill a container with rice, sand, or beans and hide small toys inside. The child can dig through the materials to find objects, practicing vocabulary (“I found a car,” “It’s in the sand”) and descriptive language (“The car is small,” “It’s shiny”).

Goal Focus: Vocabulary expansion, sensory awareness, social interaction, fine motor skills.

7. Action Songs and Rhymes

Objective: Improve speech fluency, memory, and social language.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”: A great song for practicing body part vocabulary and following directions.
    • “If You’re Happy and You Know It”: This song encourages actions (“Clap your hands,” “Stomp your feet”) and can be used to practice verbs and body parts.
    • Animal Songs: Sing songs about animals (e.g., “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”) and have the child act out the animal sounds and movements.

Goal Focus: Receptive and expressive language, following directions, memory skills.

8. Role-Playing and Social Scenarios

Objective: Build social communication, problem-solving, and emotional expression.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • “What Would You Do?” Scenarios: Present the child with simple social scenarios and ask them to respond, such as, “What would you do if you dropped your ice cream?” or “What do you say when someone gives you a present?” This helps build appropriate social responses.
    • Play Restaurant: Set up a pretend restaurant and take turns being the waiter/waitress and the customer. Practice polite phrases (“Please,” “Thank you,” “Can I have…?”) and simple requests.

Goal Focus: Social skills (greetings, polite requests, expressing emotions), problem-solving.

9. Action Verbs Game

Objective: Practice vocabulary related to actions and verbs.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Charades: Have the child act out different verbs (e.g., “run,” “jump,” “eat,” “sleep”) while the therapist or peers guess. This can be a fun way to reinforce vocabulary and practice using verbs in context.
    • Animal Movements: Ask the child to imitate animals (e.g., “Hop like a bunny,” “Fly like a bird”) and then describe what the animal is doing (“The bird is flying”).

Goal Focus: Action verbs, following directions, expressive language.

10. Memory Games

Objective: Develop attention, memory, and expressive language.

  • Activity Ideas:
    • Memory Matching Cards: Use cards with pictures of objects, animals, or people. The child can take turns flipping over two cards at a time and naming the objects.
    • “I Spy”: Use a set of toys or pictures and play “I Spy” with the child. For example, “I spy something green” or “I spy something round.”

Goal Focus: Memory, vocabulary, attention, and categorization.


Customizing Play Activities

When selecting play activities for speech therapy, it is important to consider the child’s developmental level, interests, and the specific goals for speech therapy. Play can be adapted to focus on a variety of skills, from basic vocabulary and sentence structure to more complex social interaction and problem-solving.

Play has the added benefit of increasing comfort and connection between the learner and the speech therapist.

child playing game in speech therapy

IEP Goals For Play In Speech Therapy

For many children, play can also be a measure of progress and ability over time. Incorporating play into speech therapy sessions is not only more engaging for the learner, it allows the speech therapist to more easily access a child’s current level of funtion.

Here are some examples of play goals that can be incorporated into speech therapy sessions in order to best meet a child’s specific needs:

1. Increase Vocabulary

  • Goal: The child will use 5-10 new words during structured play activities (e.g., during pretend play with toys or a storytelling activity).
  • Example: During a pretend play activity with a toy kitchen, the child will correctly label items (e.g., “plate,” “cup,” “spoon,” “cook,” “serve”).

2. Expand Sentence Structure

  • Goal: The child will use 3-5 word sentences in play interactions (e.g., “I want the red truck” or “The baby is sleeping”).
  • Example: During a dollhouse play session, the child will use sentences such as, “The mommy is cooking,” or “The dog is sleeping.”

3. Improve Turn-Taking and Social Communication

  • Goal: The child will take turns with a peer or therapist during a game, demonstrating appropriate use of communication (e.g., asking for a turn, giving a compliment).
  • Example: Playing a board game like “Candy Land,” the child will wait for their turn, say “my turn” or “your turn,” and interact socially with others in a structured way.

4. Use of Pronouns

  • Goal: The child will correctly use pronouns (he, she, they, we, I) during play activities.
  • Example: While playing with action figures, the child will say, “He is jumping” or “She is cooking dinner” while narrating their play.

5. Increase Expressive Language in Play

  • Goal: The child will initiate 3-5 verbal interactions during play.
  • Example: While playing with a toy car set, the child might say, “Let’s race the cars!” or “The red car goes fast!”

6. Improve Understanding of Concepts (e.g., opposites, categories, etc.)

  • Goal: The child will demonstrate understanding of basic concepts such as “big/little,” “on/off,” “in/out” through play.
  • Example: During a play session with blocks, the therapist might ask, “Can you put the big block on top of the little one?” or “Put the car in the garage.”

7. Improve Play Skills (Functional Play, Symbolic Play, or Pretend Play)

  • Goal: The child will engage in 10 minutes of pretend or symbolic play (e.g., pretending a block is a phone or using a doll to pretend it’s eating).
  • Example: The child pretends to make food in a toy kitchen and then feeds a doll, using appropriate pretend actions.

8. Increase Requesting and Commenting

  • Goal: The child will use 3-5 appropriate requests or comments during play (e.g., asking for help, commenting on a toy, requesting an item).
  • Example: While playing with a toy puzzle, the child might say, “Help me,” or “I want the blue piece.”

9. Improve Articulation/Pronunciation in Play

  • Goal: The child will correctly produce target sounds (e.g., “s,” “r,” “th”) in play-based activities, aiming for clarity in speech.
  • Example: While playing with animal figures, the child will say, “The snake is slithering,” or “The rabbit hops.”

10. Develop Narrative Skills

  • Goal: The child will retell a simple story or sequence of events with appropriate sequencing (e.g., beginning, middle, and end).
  • Example: After reading a short story, the child will use toy characters to act out the story with a beginning (e.g., “The bear woke up”), middle (e.g., “The bear went to the river”), and end (e.g., “The bear went home to sleep”).

11. Facilitate Social-Emotional Communication

  • Goal: The child will appropriately express and identify emotions (e.g., happy, sad, angry, excited) during play.
  • Example: While playing with dolls or figurines, the child might say, “The dog is sad because it lost its ball,” or “The boy is happy because he got a gift.”

12. Following Directions

  • Goal: The child will follow 2-3 step directions (e.g., “Put the red block on the table and give me the yellow one”).
  • Example: During a game, the child will follow instructions like, “Pick up the blue car and park it in the garage.”

13. Understanding and Using Prepositions

  • Goal: The child will correctly use prepositions such as “in,” “on,” “under,” “next to,” and “over” during play.
  • Example: The child will place a toy car on top of a box, under a table, or next to a building while using the corresponding preposition in speech.

child playing with cards

The Value Of Play Based Therapy

These goals can be tailored to the individual child’s level and needs, and they should be adjusted as progress is made. Play-based therapy not only supports language development but also fosters social and cognitive skills in a natural and enjoyable context. Would you like help creating specific play activities for any of these goals?

When setting play-related goals for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), the focus should be on addressing the child’s developmental and communicative needs in a way that is accessible and enjoyable for the learner.

Research has proven time and time again that incorporating play into learning increases learner understanding and retention. Speech therapy shouldn’t an exception to this valuable and child friendly approach.

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