Building toys like blocks, LEGOs, or magna-tiles are some of my favorite therapy tools. They provide nearly endless opportunities for language development, and are a great reinforcer activity as well!

​This is far from a complete list of ways to use building toys for speech therapy. They really can be used to target almost any goal. Use these ideas as inspiration and see how you can use them to best meet your child’s needs.

Drill work is boring. That’s why I recommend that you practice articulation with something highly motivating for your child.

For example, if your child loves blocks, this can be a very easy way to make practicing speech sounds more fun.

For every sound they practice, give them 3 more blocks to add to their creation. Play around with the sound-to-block ratio till you find a balance that is motivating for your child, but also maximizes the amount of sounds they’re practicing.

Another option is to use the blocks as your target words.

This will only work for certain speech sounds. But if your child’s sound is one of them, it’s a great way to practice without them feeling like they’re doing hardly any work!

​To do this, just emphasize the sounds that can be used to describe certain blocks. Have your child ask for the Long block, the Small Block, the Red Block, Yellow Block, the Black Block, etc.

Building toys provide a fantastic variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. Dump out a pile of them and help your child sort them to work on learning those basic language concepts.

For an easier task, give your child one category at a time. For example, “Make a pile of all the blue bricks”. Then move on to the next color once they’ve finished.

If that’s difficult, give them one to three blue bricks to start the pile, and have them search for the rest. Sometimes watching you look through the pile and model how the task works is all they need to be able to finish it independently.

​If that’s too easy, try adding more detail to the category. For example, “Make a pile with all the small blue bricks”. You can also try having them sort multiple categories at a time. For example, “Separate all the bricks by their color”.

If you have trouble getting your child to communicate, try taking something they want and putting it out of reach.

Not something really important like food or their safety toy...

The goal isn't to cause frustration, it's to create opportunities to model functional communication.

So if your child really likes playing with their magna-tiles, try putting them in a bin they need help opening or on a shelf out of reach.

You can also hold the box with the toys throughout the activity and practice making requests before you hand them a few more pieces. 

This communication may look like pointing to the tiles while you model the sign and word "more". It may mean your child requesting specific pieces like “blue tile”. Or, it might mean your child saying, “Can I have 5 pink tiles please?”

It doesn’t matter what level your child is at. It matters that they’re given opportunities to communicate at a level slightly above what they'd typically use on their own.

To encourage further growth, try expanding slightly on whatever request they use. If they gestured, say “tile” or “tile please” as you hand it to them. If they used 2 words, try adding a third, like “one blue tile” or “big blue tile”. Or, if they are using full sentences, respond with another example of a full sentence, such as “Here are your 5 pink tiles”.

Oh the many ways you can practice following directions with building toys!

This can be as simple as saying “Give mama a LEGO”. However, there are several more complex language concepts that can be targeted as well:

- Quantitative Concepts: This is working on numbers. “Give me two LEGOs”, or “Make a tower of five LEGOs”.

- Spatial Concepts: This is working on position words, like on, under, or next to. Start with one LEGO on the table, and hand your child a new LEGO with instructions like “Put this LEGO on top” or “Put this LEGO behind it”.

- Temporal (Time) Concepts: This is working on when you do things. “Add the white LEGO after you add the red LEGO”. (If you're using concepts like colors or shapes in these directions, make sure your child has mastered those concepts. You can’t accurately judge their comprehension of temporal concepts if it could be their understanding of the colors causing the error).

- Semantic Concepts: These are features like color, shape, and size. “Make a red tower” or “Give me a blue LEGO”.

​For more complex directions, you can combine multiple concepts. For example, “Put the blue LEGO under the yellow LEGO”. Only move on to this when your child is doing well with the individual concepts on their own.

Building toys can also be great for kids working on more complex language skills, or who are working on articulation at the sentence or conversation level. 

Ask your child to describe what they’re going to build (what it will be, what it will look like, what it’s for).

Ask your child to describe the process of building it (what pieces they need, what they do first, what they’re going to do next).

When they’re done, ask your child to describe what they built (how it looks now that it’s finished, how it’s the same or different from how they planned).

As they describe, ask follow up questions that will help them provide more details. Ask them things like what color it will be, whether they need the big piece or small piece, why they need that piece, what’s going to happen when they put this piece on.

It should feel like a natural conversation, but it allows you to work on speech sounds in conversation, or target two very important language skills (describing and answering questions) at the same time.