10 Holiday Gift Guide Ideas (Speech and OT Therapist Approved!) 2024 Edition

The holiday season is a great time to find gifts that are not only fun but also help our little ones learn and grow. Toys and activities that encourage communication, language development, and motor skills, along with allowing young children to explore the sensory system can make a big impact. At this stage, kids are learning to express themselves and understand the world around them, so gifts that build on those skills are a perfect choice. Whether it’s an interactive storybook or a simple musical instrument, these kinds of simple gifts make learning feel like play. Plus, they’re a great way for parents and kids to connect while introducing important skills like communication and vocabulary. It can be difficult to decide which gifts to buy out of the many available. We compiled a short list of our favorite toys and games that we like to use in speech and occupational therapy and at home with our children!

1. Interactive Storybooks (Ages 0+)

Never Touch a …

These books have something to touch and feel on every page encouraging early interaction with books, and there is a book for every season or a book to fit every season.

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “animal, monster, or dinosaur noises (moo, baa, roar), touch + X, more, turn the page”

Poke-a-Dot Books

Encourage interaction on every page engaging early readers while targeting fine motor skills.

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “animal noises, push, more/all done”

2. Laugh and Learn Smart Stages Piggy Bank (Ages 1+)

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “open/close, nose, in/out”

Target fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination.

3. Musical Instruments (Ages 1+ supervised)

Simple instruments like tambourines, maracas, or xylophones encourage exploration of sounds and rhythms, aiding in listening skills.

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “bang, shake, more, nursery rhymes.”

Target fine motor skills.

4. Rainbow Spinning/Stacking toy (Ages 6 months+)

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “on/off, ready, set, GO!, more, down, colors.”

Target spatial concepts and motor skills.

5. Critter Clinic (Ages 2+)

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “open/close, Ouch, uh-oh, help + animal, animal sounds (meow, woof,) animal names.”

Target spatial concepts and imaginative play.

6. Vehicle sound puzzle (Ages 1+)

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “on/off, vroom, Whee-oo, chugga-chugga-choo-choo, ship, train, more.”

Targets fine motor skills: pincer grasp.

7. Hahahaland 2-in-1 Car and Ball Toy (Ages 1+)

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “colors, my turn/your turn, down, bang, hit + color, vroom”

8. Little Tikes First Slip and Slide (Ages 1+)

Sometimes it takes a little movement to get children vocalizing!

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “Ready, set, GO!, up/down, slide, more, whee,”

Target gross motor skills, balance and coordination, spatial awareness, and vestibular stimulation.

9. Melissa and Doug Food Cutting Play Set (Ages 2+)

Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “cut + food, yum, yuck, eat, counting, I want + food.”

Target fine motor skills.

10. Tongues Out! (Ages 4+)

Language goals to increase core vocabulary: “Find + color, not + color.”

Target motor skills, social communication (taking turns), and negation (not blue).

Picky Eaters During Holiday Meals

Allegra Bereszniewicz M.S., CCC-SLP/QOM

This time of year can be tough when you have a child who is a picky or problem eater. It’s full of extended family gatherings where the bulk of the focus tends to be on eating specific, traditional foods. Not to mention the experience on a whole can be very overstimulating for your little ones (not to mention you!)

Here are some reasons that the holidays can be difficult for your child:

A lot of people- some your child may know and feel comfortable with and others that may be new and unfamiliar to them.
A new or different space- If you are traveling, just the act of getting to your destination can be overwhelming. If you are hosting--their familiar space and environment is now different, filled with a lot of people, noises and things (i.e. foods, decorations, etc.)
New and different foods- the foods being offered may be completely new or presented in a different way that is unfamiliar.
Certain expectations- although most family members and friends mean well, they sometimes have expectations on behaviors and eating habits that can create added pressure for your child.
Off-routine- Your day to day is typically pretty routine but during the holidays, routines tend to be relaxed and children don’t necessarily know what’s to come next.

Here are a few strategies to implement this holiday season:

Talk it through!- Use the time before and between holidays to really prepare your child for what’s to come. Share the holiday magic and make it fun and exciting but also informative so they know what to expect.
- Show them pictures and videos from previous years or relatives that they will see during the holidays to help them get ready.
- Do the same with what foods they can expect to see and smell during holiday meal times—show them pictures and maybe cook some dishes together in the weeks leading up to the holidays!
- Provide verbal and visual schedules to help them know what the day(s) will look like from an activity standpoint to help them prepare.
- Continue to talk everything through as it happens. For example, if you are in the car traveling to a relative’s house, talk about what they can expect when you arrive, who they will see and ask questions to check in for understanding!
Limit changes as best you can-This can be tricky so give yourself grace too!
- Try to maintain portions of your routine to help not to overwhelm your child—for example nap and meal times.
- Try offering food during typical meal times that are preferred and familiar foods that your child feels safe with.
- Ask them what safe and comforting toys they want to select for the trip to accompany them.
Adjust meals-
- Feel free to feed your child their typical meals or snacks prior to the “Holiday Meal” so that they are not hungry and frustrated by the time the main meal comes.
- During Family/Holiday meals encourage your child to sit with the family but try offering 1-2 preferred and familiar foods during this time so that not all the offered foods are new or novel!
- You can incorporate a “learning” plate into holiday meal times where the novel foods can be placed but your child is not “expected” to eat it. Instead they can learn about it from a sensory standpoint (i.e. smelling, touching, licking it) or how it was prepared or grown.
- Try to shift the focus of the holidays away from eating and instead spending time with those around you, that way your little one does not feel overly pressured to eat new or non-preferred foods, which can lead to difficult behaviors.

And one last thing, it’s only 1 day so give yourself grace if your child eats less than usual or is only eating mac and cheese. Enjoy the day and time with those you love!

10 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE IDEAS (SPEECH AND OT THERAPIST APPROVED!)

Toys and games that promote language, social communication, sensory regulation and fine motor skills

Looking for holiday gifts for little ones can be HARD, there are so many options that may make it difficult for parents or loved ones to find a gift that will keep a child engaged while also targeting some skills they are working on in therapy. We compiled a (short) list of some of our favorite toys and games that we use in speech and occupational therapy to help encourage expressive and receptive language, build core vocabulary, develop fine motor skills and explore our sensory system to help you navigate gift giving this season. Something these toys have in common are that they are simple and promote interactions, which from a social communication level--we love! These are for the most part very low-tech and allow room for the caregiver to model and encourage language while playing!

“Learning Resources Spike the Fine Motor Hedgehog” (ages 18 months +): Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “in/out, colors, my turn, pull, push.” Targets fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination.
“Melissa and Doug Pizza Party Wooden Play Food Set” (ages 3+): Language goals/ core vocabulary to incorporate: “more + food, counting, eat, I want + food, yummy, yuck!, cut.”
“B-Toys- Interactive Red Barn” (Ages 2+): Language goals/core vocabulary: “Ready, set, GO!, down, up, push, open, close, animal names + sounds, ball, roll, slide, spin, peek-a-boo!” Target spatial concepts, following 1-2 step directions and fine motor skills.
"Melissa and Doug Slice and Bake Cookie Set” (ages 3+): Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “more + flavor/color, on, off, help me, hot, cut, open.” Target spatial concepts (i.e. put it on top, take it off, cut.”
“Magna-Tiles” (ages 3+): Core vocabulary to incorporate when requesting additional tiles: “More + color, colors, shapes, up, down, on, off.” Can incorporate special concepts and following directions.
“Melissa and Doug Take Along Tool Kit Wooden Construction Toy” (ages 3+): Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “bang bang, boom, turn, help, on, off, in, out and dump.” Targets fine motor skills with turning gears and tools.
“Ocean and Sand Sensory Bin” (ages 3+): Language goals/ core vocabulary to incorporate: “uh-oh, hide, my turn, shake shake, dig + animal names.” Targets fine motor skills, imaginative and sensory play skills.
“Melissa and Doug Examine and Treat Pet Vet Play Set” (ages 3+): Language goals/core vocabulary to incorporate: “Ouch! Boo-boo, help, open, shot, look!, dog, cat, meow, woof + body parts.”
“Melissa and Doug Magnetic Matching Picture Game” (Ages 3-5): Language goals/ core vocabulary to incorporate: “on, off, up, down, go, stop, swing, vroom, drive, bus, + farm animals.” Target spatial concepts, matching and following 1-2 step directions.
“Let’s Go Fishin” (ages 4+): Language goals to increase core vocabulary: Open/close + Colors. Fine motor skills: pincer grasp. Social communication: working on taking turns.

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month

These days, every month seems to represent something different to celebrate and May celebrates better speech and hearing!

Our goal is to highlight the many different areas and specialties speech language pathologists play across the lifespan for our patients. Unless you have a personal experience with speech therapy or a speech pathologist, you may not be aware of all the “hats” we can wear.

Let’s focus on pediatrics, speech pathologists treat a variety of speech and language disorders including apraxia, articulation disorders, phonological disorders, voice disorders, traumatic brain injuries, intellectual disabilities, social communication disorders, late language emergence, auditory processing disorders, fluency disorders and written language disorders. We also treat feeding and swallowing disorders including dysphagia, picky/problem eating and orofacial myology disorders.

…Just to name a few!

Let’s dive into a few that are common for our therapists to treat at Gro.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech- or CAS is a neurological pediatric speech sound disorder where the precision and consistency of movements underlying speech are impaired in the absence of neuromuscular deficits (i.e. abnormal reflexes or tone). CAS may occur as a result of a known neurological impairment (i.e. brain damage) or independently. Think of it this way: the child knows what they want to say but has trouble coordinating the precise movements of the articulators to get the message out.

Articulation Disorders- these fall under the umbrella term “speech sound disorders” and focuses on speech errors in production of individual speech sounds such as distortions or substitutions of a sound.

Phonological Disorders- these fall under the umbrella term “speech sound disorders” as well but these are predictable, rule-based errors that affect more than one sound such as fronting (saying “tat” instead of cat), stopping (saying “dun” for sun) or final consonant deletion (saying “go” for goat).

Augmentative and Alternative Communication- or AAC is an area of clinical practice that supplements or compensates for impairments in speech-language production and/or comprehension including spoken and written modes of communication. AAC is an umbrella term that can use any equipment, tool or strategy to improve functional communication for people. Some forms of AAC include signs, gestures, line drawings, written words, picture communication boards and speech-generating devices.

Voice Disorders- occurs when voice quality, pitch and loudness differ or are inappropriate for an individual’s age, gender, cultural background or geographic location. Voice disorders are categorized under 2 main categories including Organic and Functional. Organic voice disorders include structural and neurogenic and are defined as a physiological voice disorder that is a result from alterations in respiratory, laryngeal or vocal tract mechanisms. Structural organic voice disorders are a result from physical changes in the vocal mechanism such as alterations in vocal fold tissues (i.e. edemas or vocal nodules) and/or structural changes in the larynx due to aging. Neurogenic organic voice disorders are a result from problems with the central or peripheral nervous system innervation to the larynx that affect functioning of the vocal mechanism such as vocal tremors, spasmodic dysphonia or vocal fold paralysis. Functional voice disorders are a result from inefficient use of the vocal mechanism when the physical structure is normal, such as vocal fatigue, muscle tension dysphonia or aphonia, diplophonia or ventricular phonation.

Traumatic Brain Injuries- or TBIs are a form of nondegenerative acquired brain injury resulting from a bump, blow or jolt to the head/body or a penetrating head injury that disrupts normal brain function. TBIs can cause mild, moderate or severe brain damage that can result in speech, language, swallowing or auditory processing disorders.

Intellectual Disabilities- or ID is characterized by the onset in the developmental period (before age of 22 years), significant limitations in adaptive behavior and significant limitations in intellectual functioning. The diagnosis of an ID is not made by a speech pathologist but children with IDs may benefit from speech, language and/or auditory processing therapy to help improve functional communication in the child’s daily life.

Late Language Emergence- this is often referred to as a “late talker” and is characterized by a delay in language onset with no other diagnosed disability or developmental delay in other cognitive or motor domains. Late language emergence is diagnosed when language development trajectories are below age expectations. Children may have expressive language delays only or they may have mixed expressive and receptive delays. Children with expressive language delays often exhibit reduced vocabulary and delayed sentence structure and articulation. Children with mixed expressive and receptive language delays will show a delay in oral language production and language comprehension.

Fluency Disorders- the most common fluency disorder is “stuttering,” which is an interruption in the flow of speaking characterized by specific types of disfluencies including the repetitions of sounds, syllables and monosyllabic words (i.e. “Look at the b-b-baby” or “Let’s go out-out-out”). Disfluencies can affect the rate and rhythm of speech and may be accompanied by negative reactions to speaking, avoidance behaviors, escape behaviors and physical tension.

Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Disorders- This is an umbrella term so let’s break it down a little:

Feeding- is the process involving any aspect of eating or drinking including gathering and preparing food and liquid for intake, sucking or chewing and swallowing. A pediatric feeding disorder is defined as “impaired oral intake that is not age-appropriate and is associated with medical, nutritional, feeding skill, and/or psychosocial dysfunction.” It may be associated with oral motor and oral sensory function and includes behaviors such as refusing age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate foods or liquids, accepting a restricted variety or quantity of foods or liquids, displaying disruptive or inappropriate mealtime behaviors, failing to master self-feeding skills expected for developmental levels, failing to use developmentally appropriate feeding devices or utensils and experiencing less than optimal growth.

Swallowing- is the complex process during which saliva, liquids and foods are transported from the mouth into the stomach while protecting the airway. It consists of 4 phases: oral preparatory phase, oral transit, pharyngeal and esophageal. A swallowing disorder is called “dysphagia” and can occur in one or more of the 4 phases of swallowing and can result in aspiration (the passage of liquid, food or saliva into the trachea).

Long term consequences of feeding and swallowing disorders can include food aversion, oral aversion, aspiration pneumonia and/or compromised pulmonary status, undernutrition or malnutrition, dehydration, GI complications (i.e. motility disorders, constipation and diarrhea), poor weight gain, ongoing need for gastrointestinal or parenteral nutrition and prolonged feeding and swallowing problems into adulthood.

Orofacial Myology Disorders- or OMDs are patterns involving the oral and orofacial musculature that interfere with normal growth development, or function of orofacial structures, or call attention to themselves. OMDs can be found in children, adolescents and adults and can co-occur with a variety of speech and swallowing disorders. See our OFM blog post for an in-depth dive into this one 😉

That was A LOT!

Keep in mind that these are only a handful of disorders and diagnoses that speech pathologists can treat. Most SLPs have a passion for a few different areas but as you can imagine we can’t be experts in all of the areas so it’s important to find the right provider for you or your child’s needs!

(Reference: American Speech Hearing Association Patient Portal- Clinical Topics https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/)