Why Child-Led Therapy?
In early intervention, we acknowledge that play-based therapy is crucial. Most people, parents and professionals, understand that children learn through play.
Play-based language therapy should also be as child-led as possible, but this is where things get a little more grey. Have you ever been playing with a child who is rolling rings instead of stacking them? Or putting pretend food on their head instead of pretending to eat it? What about the child who moves from one set of toys to the next without putting away the first?
Many adults have the impulse to teach a child how to play the “right” way. We may correctively say, “look, we can stack this ring on top!” Or, “Oh! You want to play with blocks? Let’s put away the food first!” We may also try to guide their attention: “Look, don’t you want to play with the puzzle? What’s this!? What’s that?!”
The problem is that when we insert ourselves in this way, many children lose interest, and more importantly, they communicate and play less. Suddenly, there is a task to be completed, rather than free play in which they are in control.
There are times to teach structure, transitions and clean up (and for some children this may be a part of speech therapy). For the most part, however, children communicate the most when pressure is low, when interest is high, and when there is a strong sense of autonomy in play. This means that in early language therapy, adults must be responsive, follow the child’s lead, and reduce directives and questions as much as possible.
What does this look like? We might imitate a child’s play actions (such as putting food on our head!). We might imitate their sounds and words as well! We may have three sets of toys out at once, playing amongst a “mess.” We may comment on what the child is doing, rather than direct them to do something else. For some, being responsive comes very naturally; for others, being directive is a natural way to interact. My job as a speech therapist is to meet each caregiver where they are to build more connection with their child in play. For many, the first place we start is in decreasing questions and directives.
I am trained in Responsive Teaching (Mahoney & MacDonald, 2019) and am always eager to share simple strategies we can use with our children to increase communication and play opportunities.
For autistic children, child-led therapy with a strengths-based approach is even more critical for a range of additional reasons. Until another blogpost on this topic, see this Open Access research article:
Gibson, J. L., Pritchard, E. J., & de Lemos, C. (2021). Play-based interventions to support social and communication development in autistic children aged 2–8. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mp2xc