Playing With Purpose
Did you know that you have one of the keys to helping your child’s speech develop already in your home? That’s right! The toys your child has, hold the potential to help their speech and language skills grow and develop.
Through years of doing speech therapy with children, prior to working with an SLP, most parents thought speech and language development was a daunting and expensive task. This myth is why Playing With Purpose was born.
Through the Playing With Purpose work, Emily helps show parents and caregivers how they can take playtime and make it not only fun but beneficial.
She helps show parents simple, small tweaks that they can integrate into their everyday play with the toys that their children already love and enjoy.
The magic of Playing With Purpose is that we show you how to make small changes in the vocabulary you use and give you easy to implement strategies that help boost speech and language skills.
Playing With Purpose is a wonderful approach to follow for anyone who interacts or works with children on a daily basis. It’s designed for caregivers, teachers, speech-language pathologists, and parents that want to help children grow an improve their communication and play skills.
At Tandem Speech Therapy, we developed our signature Playing With Purpose blog series to help you find the magic in daily play.
Due to the popularity of the Playing With Purpose blog, we developed it into an easy to read book that you can have on hand in your home or office.
In addition to the book, and due to popular demand, we also launched our Playing With Purpose Coaching where Emily will provide you with your own, unique Playing With Purpose plan so that you can get the most speech and language development out of play time.
Lastly, because there is nothing that Emily loves more than working in ‘TANDEM’ with children to help their language skills improve, she offers comprehensive 1-1 therapy. Learn more about the speech therapy services Tandem Speech Therapy offers.
Playing with Purpose Blog Series
In my Playing With Purpose blog series, I explore how to convert play and everyday routines into activities that are both fun and beneficial for children. Play can create moments of learning for your child and moments of connection together. With little tweaks to your interaction and the everyday routines you are already engaging in, you can increase opportunities for speech and language development in your child. The best part is it’s not a lot of extra work! As part of Playing With Purpose, I give you specific strategies to increase opportunities for speech and language development.
Playing with Purpose Coaching
Some of our favorite and most popular Playing with Purpose Blog Posts
Playing With Purpose: Mrs. Potato Head
Mrs. Potato Head and her partner provide endless opportunities for language stimulation and vocabulary development with children of all ages.
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Playing With Purpose: Stacking Cups
This week, I chose an activity for our younger kids–stacking cups. On average, stacking cups are appropriate for children 6 months and older. They are a great toy to introduce to your baby when he can sit up on the floor. And you can continue to play with the cups as he grows.
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Playing With Purpose: Magna-tiles
I love magna-tiles because they are designed to hold a child’s interest and attention, build critical developmental skills and promote imaginative play and creativity. All the makings of a great Playing With Purpose activity!
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The Development of Play
Play is much more than fun for our children. How does play develop and evolve as kids get older? What does play look like at these different stages?
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Playing With Purpose in the Snow
Whether the ground outside is blanketed by the freshly fallen snow or you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, the idea of snow is abundant this time of year so get out and start Playing With Purpose.
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Holiday Gift Guide
*This post was originally published on November 16, 2017* As a pediatric speech therapist, parents often ask me for recommendations on toys and gifts that help expand speech and language development for young children. The upcoming holiday season is a great time to...
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Thankful (A Book Preview)
It's been quite a while since my last blog post, but with good reason. If you have not already heard, I published a book! Like my popular blog series, the book is called Playing With Purpose. This book is the perfect resource for fellow SLPs, parents/caregivers,...
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10 Toys to Promote Speech & Language Development
Children spend most of their time in play which helps them understand their environment and interact with people. Nothing beats toys that children can hold and share with others. Thinking of toys to buy for your children or the ones you work with? Check out...
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Playing With Purpose: Sidewalk Chalk
It's summer which means plenty of opportunities to take your speech therapy session or your kids outside for Playing With Purpose. Now here in Texas, we've got temperatures rising above 100 degrees but some days my clients and I need a change of pace. So this...
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Playing With Purpose: Everyday Items
When I started this series, Playing With Purpose, my goal was to help parents, caregivers, educators, fellow SLPs, etc. make simple tweaks to their play interactions with children to expand speech and language skills. I have written about some of my favorite...
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Learn how to purposefully and intentionally interact with your child during play and help them increase opportunities for speech and language development with our Playing with Purpose eBook!