{"id":3214,"date":"2012-05-16T08:59:38","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T16:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.everhear.com\/?p=3214"},"modified":"2019-09-18T10:27:07","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T17:27:07","slug":"the-power-of-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/the-power-of-play\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tNo one ever said that flashcards were the\u00a0only way to improve\u00a0your child&#8217;s speech\u00a0and language skills. In fact,\u00a0motivating play activites\u00a0are often more effective\u00a0contexts to incorporate practice of your\u00a0child&#8217;s newly developed skills.<\/p>\n<p>Play is how children naturally explore and\u00a0develop\u00a0new skills in infancy. Because it is so natural for children,\u00a0play eliminates the pressure associated with performing well for their parents during drill practice,\u00a0promoting increased confidence and success with communication. Another reason that play is a superior context for\u00a0practicing new\u00a0skills is that\u00a0children\u00a0enjoy play activities and find the interaction\u00a0rewarding.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3263\" title=\"playing with blocks\" src=\"http:\/\/everhear.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/kids-playing-with-toys.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"383\" height=\"254\" \/>Play provides a format for parents\u00a0to model appropriate use of the child&#8217;s developing communication skills, which may include anything from accurate production of\u00a0a specific speech sound to the correct use of pronouns (e.g., &#8216;he&#8217;\u00a0and &#8216;she&#8217;). Parents may then comment on\u00a0the child&#8217;s success with the new skill (e.g., Child:\u00a0 &#8220;He is fast.&#8221;\u00a0 Parent: &#8220;Yes, <em>HE<\/em> is fast.&#8221;) or repeat the intended message correctly (e.g., &#8220;<em>SHE <\/em>is fast.&#8221;). Parents\u00a0may easily\u00a0reinforce appropriate language and\/or accurate sounds without directly pointing out\u00a0the child&#8217;s errors. Use of\u00a0new\u00a0communication skills \u00a0during unstructured play activities, especially those that require movement through space and distract the child&#8217;s attention from the newly acquired\u00a0skill,\u00a0may be\u00a0indicative of\u00a0more developed skills. When compared to structured table tasks (e.g., flashcards, drill practice),\u00a0responses during play conversations\u00a0are\u00a0less predictable and\u00a0facilitate\u00a0greater language variability (i.e. different types of responses, variety of vocabulary and grammatical structures).<\/p>\n<p>Although flashcards, drill practice,\u00a0and\u00a0computer programs\u00a0are effective tools that parents may employ to\u00a0enhance communication skills\u00a0at the home,\u00a0play should not be overlooked.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one ever said that flashcards were the\u00a0only way to improve\u00a0your child&#8217;s speech\u00a0and language skills. In fact,\u00a0motivating play activites\u00a0are often more effective\u00a0contexts to incorporate practice of your\u00a0child&#8217;s newly developed skills. Play is how children naturally explore and\u00a0develop\u00a0new skills in infancy. Because it is so natural for children,\u00a0play eliminates the pressure associated with performing well for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","schema":"","fname":"","lname":"","position":"","credentials":"","placeID":"","no_match":false,"name":"","company":"","review":"","address":"","city":"","state":"","zip":"","lat":"","lng":"","phone1":"","phone2":"","fax":"","mon1":"","mon2":"","tue1":"","tue2":"","wed1":"","wed2":"","thu1":"","thu2":"","fri1":"","fri2":"","sat1":"","sat2":"","sun1":"","sun2":"","hours-note":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[173,466,52],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}