Best Toys for Encouraging Communication Development in Babies & Toddlers
We are often asked what toys we recommend for helping kids develop communication skills. And even though as speech-language pathologists and moms ourselves, we truly believe ANY toy your child shows interest in can be used to support their development, these are our go-to toys for helping little ones talk and communicate more!
Many of the ideas we share below are for children who are not yet speaking or who are saying less than 100 words. You can definitely continue to use all of these classic toys well past this stage though, by using more advanced language as they learn and grow!
How These Toys Encourage Communication Development
We’ve shared some helpful toy and game lists before, like 12 perfect games for toddlers ages 3 and up, toys for supporting language development, and even our 2022 gift guide full of fun and educational toy ideas for babies and toddlers. But this list is a bit different!
Today, beyond just sharing toy ideas, we also want to give you insights into why we love the toys we recommend. So we’re diving deeper into the actual skills you can practice playing with these specific toys with your child! Under each toy we’ve listed below, you’ll see reasons why we love it for encouraging communication!
Play Is So Important!
You may have heard that independent play is important, too. And you’re right! It is. We are all for solo time and independence in play. We love and encourage it with our children and our clients. But as pediatric speech-language pathologists, we also use collaborative play a lot—and we recommend you lean into it, too! Because, in instances like these, collaborative play can help us teach kids communication skills! As you read through our list, you’ll notice that we’ve included fun ways to play with each toy! We hope this helps get you started, especially if play doesn’t come all that naturally to you.
Also, we want you to know there’s no pressure to play with your child all day long or every time they play with the toys we recommend. And not every play session has to be communication-focused, either. If you can engage with your child and these toys every so often, that’s great!
Our Favorite Toys for Communication Development
These are some of our favorite toys, with play ideas listed in order from easiest to hardest!
#1 Baby Doll
We recommend baby dolls for boys and girls. They’re staples in our speech therapy sessions!
Why We Love Them:
Baby dolls are great for helping improve your baby or toddler’s communication skills! They let you and your little one:
Practice “fun” sounds: Fun words are sounds that are easier for babies and toddlers to say before they start saying words
Play Hide & Seek: Repetition helps children learn language. You can use a repetitive phrase like, “Babyyyy! Where are you?” again and again so your child can begin to catch on.
Act Out Routines: Things like feeding, bedtime, diaper changes, and using the potty. It gives your child a chance to practice words that may be more familiar in a fun and playful way. Building off of their experiences is always a good idea, and for many kids, this is the first type of pretend play we see!
Practice Verbs: For example: “Baby is sleeping!” Or “You are carrying the baby!”. Verbs are important for little ones getting close to combining words, which typically happens after they are saying about 50 words.
#2 Farm
We love a toy farm for helping improve your baby or toddler’s communication skills!
Why We Love It:
A farm set lets you practice all kinds of skills with your child. Things like:
Imitation: Your little one is going to copy what you do before they copy what you say. And a farm gives them lots of opportunities for copying what you do! They can put animals in, take them out, make them walk, jump, go to sleep…anything! A farm provides lots of opportunities for your little one to copy fun animal sounds, too! (Something little ones are often motivated by.)
Comprehension: Little ones need to understand new words before they ever say them. You can help them work on their comprehension by laying a few animals in a pile and asking, “Can I have the cow?” Once they understand different animal names, it will probably be easier for them to say animal names!
Vocabulary: If your child is interested in the farm, you can use their interest as an opportunity to introduce fun new animal vocabulary as well as the signs for animals!
Basic Language Concepts: A farm set also provides TONS of opportunities to practice basic concepts that are important for language learning, Things like in/out, on/off, and open/close.
Pretend Play: Get silly with it. Have the animals eat, sleep, or run! Engage your child’s imagination and encourage them to pretend with toys.
#3 Bubbles
We know there’s nothing like bubbles for getting a shy, nervous, or hesitant child to open up in a speech therapy session! If your child is sometimes on the reserved side or doesn’t communicate too much just yet, see if bubbles get them going! They are motivating and captivating for most little ones.
Why We Love It:
We love bubbles for all kinds of speech and learning reasons, like:
Gestures & Gesture Imitation: You can exaggerate certain gestures like BLOWING the bubble or POPPING the bubble. (If your little one isn’t yet able to blow or use their finger to pop, you could try bigger motor movements like stomping the bubbles or clapping the bubbles.) Making gestures is easier than saying words, so your child is likely to do these before they copy the words you say.
Initiation Communication: Because you, as the caregiver, will have control of the bottle of bubbles, it gives your child the opportunity to request—to practice using a word, sound, or gesture to make something happen. We want our kids to learn that their communication has power, meaning that when they do something, something happens. This is a big moment when kids realize this.
Fun Sounds: Bubble play is FULL of fun sounds like Up, Pop, Bloooow, Uh oh, and Wee! These sounds can feel fun and silly, so many babies and toddlers find them particularly engaging.
Location Words: You can practice location vocabulary with bubbles, by saying, “Watch the go up, up!” or, “The bubble landed ON your head!”
#4 Nesting Cups
We love nesting cups for helping improve your baby or toddler’s communication skills. Some version of these cups is always in our speech therapy bags and our playrooms—which really means scattered across our living, dining, and bedroom floors! 😂
Why We Love Them:
There are so many reasons to love nesting cups! You can:
Put in/Take out: Put figures inside the cups or use them like little containers for items like pom poms! Babies and toddlers LOVE to put things in and take things out. So it’s a great way to capitalize on their natural inclinations.
Hide Things Under: Hide those same objects under the nesting cups. Then, say, “Peek a boo!” when you lift the cup. Your toddler will likely ask for this one again and again.
Stacking: As you stack the cups like blocks, you can say, “Up up up!” (Did you know saying things in threes can help your little one try to say a new word?)
Practice Sounds: Encourage your child to make a drinking sound (sluuuuurp) or have fun with sounds like “Uh Oh!” and “Up, up, up!”
Pretend Play: Use them as bowls, or put them on your heads like hats. This is great pretend play and an easier one for little ones to try out themselves!
How do you use nesting cups with your little one at home?
#5 Car Ramps
We love a simple car ramp for helping improve your baby or toddler’s communication skills.
Why We Love It:
We love car ramps because they can help your little one learn to:
Understand Cause & Effect: an important play skill! They are learning that when they put the car at the top of the ramp, it goes down to the bottom, and then once they understand the pattern, they are purposeful in initiating this pattern!
Practice Fun Sounds: A car ramp provides lots of great opportunities to practice fun sounds like car noises (Vroom vroom! Beep! Honk!) and other sounds like Weeee, Uh Oh! And Oh no! Remember, these fun sounds are often easier to say than functional words.
Say “Go!”: Show them a few times “ready set go!” and then try showing them again, but this time pause at the top of the ramp before you say go, and see if they fill it in on their own!
Practice “My Turn!”: We like using the gesture of tapping your hand on your chest to indicate “my turn.” This is a great one to teach for grabby hands!
Which one of these might you try with your little one?!
Bonus: Your Child’s Favorite Toy!
Our very favorite toy might not be on this list! Why? Because it’s whatever toy your child shows the most interest in right now. If you know your child doesn't love these toys but can engage with you for hours over something else, that’s okay! Anything can be used as a language opportunity!
We just hope that if you’re strained for ideas or your current in-rotation toys could use a pick-me-up, the 5 toys listed here will help you and your little one get inspired.
Want to see more of our favorite toys for babies and toddlers?
Check out our new Amazon shop to see all of our favorites in one place!
Should We Do A Part Two?
Once we got going on this post, it was pretty hard to narrow our list down to five toys! We could go on for days giving you recommendations for communication-focused toys and ways to play. So, should we do a part two? Let us know in the comments below—or send us a message on Instagram—if you’d like more toy and play recommendations like these.
Encourage Communication By Learning The Milestones
The toys in this list are a great way to encourage the smaller communication skills—also known as milestones—your baby or toddler is learning and working on each day. So by incorporating them in fun ways, you can feel good knowing you’re doing something great!
Want to know what those specific milestones they’re learning actually are? And which ones will come next? Then download our Toddler Milestone Checklist! It’ll give you incredible insight into all the amazing things happening in their minds each day.
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