Importance of Dollhouse in Speech Therapy

Boys and girls playing with their dollhouses is a very common practice in Western countries. They get a small house with almost all amenities in a normal house in miniature forms to play with. 

A doll house will include all kinds of household pieces like chairs, tables, beds, a television, a sink, a toilet, shelves, a stove, a fridge including human beings, who are the house members like the father, mother, brother, sister, grandparents etc. 

Playing with a dollhouse is extremely important in best speech therapy as it is versatile, functional and engaging for the children playing with it. It enhances the language and social skills of children in many ways beyond your imagination.

 Let us see how Dollhouses can be beneficial in the overall language development of a child in various ways.

Receptive language Skills

• Vocabulary: Almost all the items within the dollhouse would be familiar to the child. You can ask the kid “where is the table?” or “Show me the sink”.

The question along with a display of 4 or 5 items will help the child to imbibe the vocabulary related to each and every item in the house. 

• Identifying items with attributes: Ask the child to point or name the household item that can be sat upon or slept on or wash mouth. The kid will do a thorough check within the dollhouse and identify the item as you described it. 

• Give the level 1 instructions: You can give level one small instructions to the child like, “put mom in the bed” or “put dad in the bathroom” or “open the front door”.

• Give level 2 instructions: Once the child becomes master of small instructions, increase the challenge with multiple directions like, “put the girl on the dining table and make her eat the dinner”.

Expressive Language Skills

• Expressing Vocabulary: Once the child has absorbed the names of different household items, you will have to point and ask “what is this?” or “what do we call this?”, the child will speak out the names confidently. 

• Using Action Verbs: Try to teach the action verbs by describing it along the play, like “brother is walking/bathing/running/watching” etc. This will help the child in associating the actions with the verbs.

• Practice with Position words: You will have to ask the child about the position of different items by describing it.For example take the mother in hand and ask the child ”Do we have to keep the mother under the table or behind the shelf or on the chair” etc.

Emphasizing the position words like in, on, under, behind, in front, beside etc. along with your actions help children in drawing connections.

• Promote Narratives: With the daily activities of the dolls in the dollhouse, you can encourage your child to develop the best narrative. “What do you think the mom is doing?” or “What happens next?” or “Where is he going?” etc. 

From the above mentioned points it is quite clear that dollhouses are an excellent fun activity that must be promoted for speech therapy sessions. 

Almost all the best speech therapy centers in Sharjah or any place for that matter, encourages the parents of children to build or buy a doll house for the child to play with. 

After all, it is the mini version of a house that you dream about with the perfect family and the perfect outlook. Children would be direly excited to play with the dream-house.