~ Bubbles~

5 ways to Foster Speech & Language Development

What can I say….. Kids LOVE bubbles! And the great thing about bubbles? Because kids do love bubbles, they can be used to help support speech and language development. I’m going to share 5 ways you as a parent can use bubbles to help your little one to help expand their speech and language skills.

1. Bubbles can be used to help your child develop “joint attention”. Joint attention simply put is when 2 people socially focus on the same thing. To establish joint attention during bubble play, bring the bubble wand to your eyes before blowing a bubble to encourage your child to look at you. Once they look at you blow bubbles as a reward.

2. Bubbles can be used to help your child learn to request. For children just learning to communicate, this may be as simple as blowing the bubbles, screwing the lid on tight, and giving the bubbles back to your child. Wait….don’t do anything. What do they do? Do they try and open them but can’t so they hand them back to you for help? If so…. they have just made a request! Requests could also be single word approximations, or even 2-3 word phrases depending on your child’s language level.

3.  Bubbles can be used to practice early developing speech sounds. Bubbles are GREAT for working on early-developing speech sounds like /p/, /b/, and /m/. These are a few of the earliest developing consonant speech sounds children typically learn to produce. Use the following words while playing with bubbles “pop”, “bubble”, “big”, “baby”, “more”, “open”, “up”, “blow”, “please”. Encourage your child to look at your mouth while you say the words and encourage them to repeat the words during bubble play. If they are not able to, that is OK! MODEL, MODEL, MODEL

4. Bubbles can be used to encourage sentence expansion. A tip here…..you want to be 1-2 language levels above your child. For example, if they are using single words, you use 2-word phrases. Many combinations from the words above can be put together for great expansion phrases. Always model first, then WAIT. Allow your child time to process what you said and try it themselves. Then model again, and encourage imitation. Some phrases to try are: “more bubbles”, “big bubble”, “baby bubble”, “blow bubbles”, “open please”, “open bubbles”, “bubble up”, “pop bubbles”.

5. Bubbles can be used to teach lip rounding. Does your child round their lips and make a “kissy face” while blowing bubbles? If so….GREAT! Being able to round and retract the lips is necessary for the articulation of many speech sounds. You can encourage lip rounding by gently squeezing their cheeks forward to get their lips in the right position. Practicing this in a mirror making “silly faces” is also sometimes helpful. These are just a few of the many ways bubbles can be used to encourage vocabulary development, requesting, social skills, and articulation development.  Be creative and have fun! And always remember……if you have questions or concerns regarding your child’s speech and language development discuss these concerns with your child’s pediatrician and/or consult with a speech language pathologist

 

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