Play and language

Also called Play-based language learning, Symbolic play, Pretend play and language

Language grows in play, not in drills. How it happens, and how to play with a child who communicates differently without turning it into a lesson.

What it is

Play is where young children do most of their language learning, because it's where they're most attentive, most motivated and most often in a shared moment with an adult. Pretend play in particular runs on the same machinery as language: using one thing to stand for another (a banana for a phone) is the same trick as using a sound to stand for a thing. Children who pretend early tend to talk early, and the two develop together.

It's also the setting where an adult's language input is most useful, because it's about what the child is already doing.

Who it can help

Parents and early years staff of every child, and particularly of children whose play looks different: autistic children who line things up, spin wheels or repeat a scene, children with a learning disability whose play is at an earlier stage than their age, children with a physical disability who can't reach or hold, and non-speaking children who can't narrate what they're doing.

The mistake is to see different play as no play, or to replace it with a language lesson. Lining up cars is play. Joining in with the lining up is where the language comes from.

How it works

Play develops in stages that map onto language. Sensory play (mouthing, banging) in the first year alongside babbling. Functional play (using things the right way: brushing hair, pushing a car) around a year, alongside first words. Pretend play with substitutes and short sequences (feeding teddy, then putting him to bed) from around eighteen months to two, alongside the two-word stage. Role play with stories and other children from three, alongside narrative.

The adult's job is to follow, join and add. Follow the child's choice of activity (following the lead). Join by doing the same thing, alongside, without taking over. Add language: a word or a short phrase about what's happening, said as commentary rather than as a question (commenting rather than questioning). That's the whole method behind most parent-led language programmes, and it works because the child is already attending.

For an AAC user, the device belongs in the play. Model "go", "stop", "crash", "more", "my turn" on the board as the cars go, so the words arrive in the moment they mean something (aided language stimulation).

Getting started

Get down on the floor for ten minutes with no plan and nothing to teach. Watch what the child does. Do it too. Say one word about it. Wait.

Copy their play before you extend it. If they're spinning a wheel, spin one. After a few days of that, add: spin it and say "round and round", stop it and say "stop". Extension comes after joining, never instead of it.

Keep a core board or the Talk board within reach during play and press the words as you say them. Don't ask the child to press anything. Watching you use it, in play, is how they learn what it's for.

Where to get help

The NHS guide to learning to talk is built around play. Speech and Language UK has play-based ideas by age. For autistic children, the National Autistic Society on play and interests, and Attention Autism as a group approach. Intensive Interaction is the version for people at the earliest stages of communication, at any age.