You may hear about or observe your child playing many games in their speech therapy sessions and you may be wonder to yourself, “How is this therapeutic?” The truth is, games are a natural context that lend themselves to teaching a variety of language skills. Games can also be used as reinforcement when working on skills unrelated to the game itself. They are also a great, easy way to support carry-over of skills learned during sessions to outside environments like home and school. Here are just some of the skills that can be caught while playing games.

• Taking turns
• Almost every game requires turn-taking. This is not only an important aspect for participating in a game, but can also teach the foundation of “one person at a time” which can then be applied to other contexts, like conversations.

• Following directions
• Understanding and following directions is an important skill for all children to develop. Depending on the complexity of the game, they can support learning to follow simple 1-step commands (e.g., “Move 2 spaces”), up to more involved multi-step directions (e.g., If you roll a 3, move back 2 spaces, but if you roll a 6, go again).

• Making comments
• Learning to make comments is an important social skill. Games often include natural opportunities for commenting, both good (e.g., Yay! Nice job. Good game!) and bad (e.g., Oh no!, Come on. Not again!). This provides ample opportunities for children to hear a variety of comments modeled, as well as practice commenting on their own and their play partner’s actions without being so contrived and robotic. Because children play games at home, school, afterschool programs, etc. they are the perfect context to learn even rote comments that they can apply in more natural settings and engage with their peers.

• Negotiating/Problem-solving
• Games are fun, but only when you get to play them. Negotiating and problem-solving skills are often needed before you even start playing. What game do we play? Who goes first? Who gets which piece? Basic problem-solving strategies, such as flip a coin, rock-paper-scissors, you-then-me, etc. can be targeted to make initiating games and managing disagreements go more smoothly. This helps make the playing the game more fun for everyone!

• Coping
• Who enjoys losing? No one! That’s why games are important to incorporate into therapy because typically, there can only be one winner and learning to deal with unfavorable outcomes is a critical skill. Games like Chutes & Ladders and Candy Land are simple and the resulting winner is up to chance. They also provide additional opportunities to cope if they select a card that makes them move back to the beginning of the game, or they land on a slide and have to return to a previous spot. Given strategies to handle these situations in a structured context, like speech therapy, allow children to practice appropriate responses so that they will be better equipped to manage unfavorable outcomes when playing outside of therapy. They can learn to become both good losers and gracious winners!

• Model language in a natural context
• Because games are not specific to therapy, they are a natural context that therapists can use to target specific language skills in a way that can be more easily generalized. For young children, it can be as simple as learning “My turn/Your turn.” You can also target simple sentences, such as “I got the ice cream!” Card games also offer the opportunity to model a variety of question types. For example, “Do you have an 8?”
• The language that you use while playing games can support your child’s language development because you’re more likely to model the skills they’re working on without having to think about them or create contrived scenarios. It’s not just a natural context for them, it’s also natural for you!

• Most importantly, they’re fun!
• Activities that your children find fun and engaging are likely going to result in better participation. Better participation means more opportunities to elicit target skills and improved likelihood that they maintain the skills. Because games are fun, your children will want to play them at home too. This provides opportunities to help them generalize their skills outside of therapy without having to do traditional “homework”. It’s a win-win!