5 Ways to Use a Play Dough Tray in Speech Therapy

Here are 5 ways to use play dough in speech therapy to create an engaging and meaningful session. You can address many areas of communication such as expressive language, receptive language, and articulation/phonological goals. Try these ideas with play dough trays during the spring months.

#1. Pair with a Book: play dough trays are a wonderful activity to pair with any book. For example, if you read a book about Spring, you could create a play dough tray with flowers, trees, and other Spring animals. Model and talk about different Spring vocabulary words while you're creating. 

#2. Vocabulary: play dough trays are a very efficient way to build upon a child’s receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge. You can invite them to explore the tray, play alongside them, and model language through parallel talk or self-talk. Here are some basic targets I use with play dough trays: pronouns (my, your, you, I), verbs (roll, push, cut, squish), nouns (flower, tree, bird), describing words (colors, shapes, sizes). 

#2. Articulation Trials: During articulation therapy, have your client/student roll out a long “snake”- like shape. Then, after they produce 1-5 trials, have them press a bead into the snake or cut a piece of the long “snake” shape off (cutting is always a fun, fine motor task!). If you are using picture cards, have your student smash a small ball of play dough on each picture after they produce the sound/word. 

#3. Following Directions - Practice giving your student/client multi-step directions during a play dough activity. For example, first, cut out a flower and then give it a stem. You can expand upon directions as needed. Ex: First, cut out a red flower, then give it a stem, last add a yellow center. 

#4. Comparing/Contrasting - Practice comparing/contrasting how your play dough creation looks compared to your students play dough creation. For example, “my flower is red with a white center and yours is pink with a yellow center!”.  For this task, it’s fun to start by cutting out the same shape and decorating them differently. You can pull out a venn diagram to teach similarities and differences if needed. 

#5. Sequencing tasks - play dough is a great visual support for sequencing tasks. Have your child retell a story and press balls of play dough into sequencing squares (first, next, last) or draw story components on a popsicle stick and press play dough balls on each component after retelling. 

The possibilities are endless and often come naturally once you introduce play dough in therapy!

I hope you enjoyed this "funtastic" blog post!

-Lexie Starnes, MA CCC-SLP