Play-Based Sessions
Children learn best when they are having fun. In a play-based session, your child is playing and your therapist is quietly building the skills that go with it: sounds, words, sentences, feeding and movement.
What a play-based session looks like
Your therapist plans each session around what your child enjoys, then builds the therapy goals into the play. To your child it is a game. To your therapist it is practice on exactly the skills your child is working on.
- Goals are practiced inside games, toys and activities your child chooses to keep playing.
- Your therapist follows your child's lead, so your child stays interested and motivated.
- Parents are welcome to join in, so you can see what works and use it in your own playtime together.
- The same play-based approach is used across speech, feeding, occupational and physical therapy.
What the research says
Play supports the thinking, social and emotional skills children need to learn.
In this clinical report, the American Academy of Pediatrics explains why play is essential to children's development and to strong parent-child relationships, and why time for free play has been shrinking.
What the report says:
- Play contributes to children's thinking, physical, social and emotional well-being.
- Through play, children practice sharing, negotiating, solving problems and handling their feelings, and they build confidence as they master new challenges.
- Active play supports physical health.
- When parents join in child-led play, they see the world through their child's eyes and build a closer relationship.
- Simple toys and unstructured time are valuable; children do not need expensive products to learn through play.
Good to know: This is a clinical report, which summarizes expert guidance and existing research. It is not a single experiment, so it does not report new measurements of its own.
The study behind it
Ginsburg KR; American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Communications; Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. Pediatrics. 2007.
Want the detail? Read our plain-language summary of this study. The summary and this page are general information written from the study’s published abstract, not medical advice. The full article belongs to its publisher, and the institution named on the summary does not endorse Speak Live Play. Talk with a licensed clinician about your own child.