Playing “dress up” might seem silly or “babyish” to some, but in speech therapy, it is SO helpful! We use costumes quite often in our speech therapy sessions- for our dramatic play activities (firefighter, doctor, mailman, etc.), for our cooking activities, for holiday activities, etc. Here are 5 reasons why playing “dress up” is beneficial in speech therapy:
1) MOTIVATION: Most of the time, kids are instantly more motivated and engaged in the lesson if the activity involves dressing up or wearing a costume. And when children are motivated and engaged, they learn more. 🙂
2) VISUAL/TACTILE: Kids with language impairments or learning difficulties will have more success learning and using appropriate, topic-specific language if they have a visual or hands-on support (e.g., a costume) because it’s more realistic, they can see it, and feel it.
3) SOCIAL SKILLS: Kids are usually so into costumes, that they fight over who gets to wear it first. This is a great opportunity to practice turn-taking, sharing materials, and making requests. Some social phrases you can practice are:
- “Can I put on the costume?”
- “Can I have a turn to be the princess?”
- “How do I look?”
- “You look cool/pretty!”
- “I like your costume”
- “Can I look in the mirror please?”
4) CORE WORDS: You can target several core words during any dress up activity (a few are: I/he/she/want/put/on/look/help). Some example phrases containing core words are:
- “I PUT ON apron”
- “I take off apron”
- “I WANT to LOOK IN the mirror”
- “How do I LOOK?”
- “You LOOK pretty!”
- “HE LOOKS like a chef!”
- “HELP me PUT ON the hat”
- “HELP me take off the apron”
5) CUTENESS FACTOR: The littles look so darn cute when they dress up in costume! I like to take pictures of them dressed up and have them use language to make requests to see the pictures of themselves:
- “Can I see?”
- “Can I look?”
- “Can you take my picture?”
- “I want a picture please!”
You don’t need to spend a ton of money to start your costume collection! I got this cute matching apron and chef’s hat at the Dollar Tree, and they usually have other dress up items as well (bug wings, different hats, princess crowns, etc.). Other places to look are thrift stores or garage sales. I’m always on the lookout for children’s costume items that I can snag for a cheap price to add to my collection. I do a lot of cooking activities (both pretend and real), so I get a lot of use out of this set!
Hopefully this has inspired you to use costumes in your speech therapy sessions, or if you’ve already done this, I would love to hear YOUR ideas for incorporating dress up into your sessions! Thanks for reading. 🙂
-Amanda, The SLP Girl