Play-based therapy vs. Drill therapy: Which works better?

When you observe a speech therapy session for the first time, you might be surprised and find yourself wondering, "Are they just playing in there…?"

The answer is yes, we’re playing… but both child and speech-language pathologist are learning a lot at the same time.

Play-based speech therapy is becoming more and more popular as parents and professionals alike are beginning to see its benefits. Unlike drill therapy or explicit teaching, play-based therapy works because it is attention-grabbing, motivating, and provides plenty of practice opportunities. 

Play-based therapy lets the child take the lead from play to communication while the adult uses words when they observe the child is trying to direct attention to a certain thing.

It’s not as intuitive as it sounds, though. Therapists work with parents to teach them how to use this form of play-based speech therapy at home. One thing is for certain, though… 

Play-based speech therapy helps your child learn how to communicate effectively from a young age and is a more efficient way to teach than the old school drill therapy. Here's why:

What Does Communication Include?

As speech-language pathologists, we want to help your child learn how to communicate — but what does that actually mean? Communication is taking the thoughts and feelings you experience internally and being able to share them with another person. It goes beyond teaching words and modelling.

Sometimes, we can teach children a word, but it doesn’t carry over into real life. They can point to a picture of a strawberry and say “strawberry” but cannot ask for a strawberry during snack time. They won’t tell us about the strawberries they ate later on, and they can’t explain that they're crying because they wanted to wear their strawberry shirt today.

That’s because we taught them to respond rather than to communicate. We taught them to label, imitate us, or answer our question with a word – but not how they can use those words to get our attention, direct our actions, or share what they enjoy.

Kids need to be taught to use language to describe their thoughts and feelings and see how communicating changes the world around them. We need to show them that words give them control! This is where child-led, play-based therapy comes in.

What Is Play-Based Therapy?

Letting children lead the interaction by selecting toys, playing with them in any way they enjoy, and allowing adults to follow their lead by showing them how they can use words to talk about their play and direct our actions, is fun. 

If the child gives you a direction (physically or verbally), you model a new word and continue playing. 

This requires us to observe the child, figure out what thoughts and feelings they're experiencing, and then give them those words. It also means we have to relinquish some control, so kids can see how we listen when they communicate.

Many people have had success with older drill-based teaching, like flashcards. It’s just slower and requires more practice and repetitions (and is also tedious for young children).

The Benefits of Play-Based Therapy

So, why should you choose play-based speech therapy for your child? Here are just a few reasons.

No Fight For Attention

One of the reasons play-based therapy works so well is that children do not have to use any brain power to attend and process what we direct them towards. It’s easier for them to learn how to use the word because they’re already paying attention.

When we follow the child’s lead during play, they no longer have to direct their attention and attempt to figure out what response we want from them. They can focus on having fun and sharing their play with us through advancing means of real communication. They’re not just saying words on command, but using them for a communicative purpose.

Motivation Is Already There

Another reason this works well has to do with motivation. Motivation can be extrinsic (external reward-based) or intrinsic (something we’re internally driven to do without any external reward). 

We are trying to make communication intrinsically rewarding — something your child does because they enjoy interacting and want to share their thoughts and feelings. When any behaviour is given extrinsic rewards (praise like “good job!”, stickers, toys, or free play time), it becomes less intrinsically rewarding, and the child becomes more likely to need a reward to do it at all. 

Using only drills to teach words can encourage your child to communicate only to get a reward from you instead of sharing emotions, commenting on interests, asking questions, and generally bonding with others.

Your Child Wants To Practice

Play-based therapy also ensures children are more likely to engage in these play activities often. Children spend a lot of time playing, and if we've shown them how to use words as part of these activities, they will get more opportunities to use them both on their own in independent play and when we play with them. 

If a child thought it was fun when we showed them how their cars can go in, out, under, etc., they might want to expand that to play with toy animals and will be using those same words in a new context. If children are not engaged during a vocabulary teaching activity, it's unlikely they will want to repeat it on their own later, which reduces the amount of practice they’ll get using those words.

Less Risk For Prompt-Dependency

Finally, child-led and play-based therapy reduce the chances a child will develop prompt dependency. Prompt dependency means that the child needs to be told “Say ____” to know which words to use in the situation. 

In play-based therapy, we’re waiting to see what the child wants to say and then giving them the word so they can use it. This means that it is naturally connected to the context, and the child knows why they wanted to say it already, so they will not be reliant on a prompt. So, instead of waiting to be prompted to say “bye” to Grandma, children will understand that when they’re at the door putting their shoes on, now’s the time to say goodbye.

Tips For Using Play-Based Therapy At Home

So, how do you work on this at home? Here are some tips to start incorporating play-based therapy.

• Let your child pick the activity and how they play with it. There is no wrong way to play with toys.

• Imitate their actions and narrate what the two of you are doing.

• Watch their eyes and label the items that they look towards.

• Pause occasionally and wait for your child to direct you. They might use sounds or gestures, like pulling your hand. If so, model a word they could use like “help” or “open.”

• Don’t ask your child testing wh-questions (e.g., “What’s this? What does a pig say? What colour is it?”). You CAN ask the child choice questions about toys or how they want you to play (“Up or down?”  “Car or truck?”  “Fast or slow?”)

• Don’t give your child directions. Instead, just demonstrate your new idea and narrate your action. They can choose to copy it or not, and if not, then go back to following their lead.

Sound complicated? We promise, as unfamiliar as it might feel at first, play-based speech therapy is much easier and more enjoyable than how we all usually talk to children.

Most of our sessions teach parents how to use play-based therapy as part of their normal everyday routine, so they see gains faster while improving their relationship with their little one. 

Want to learn more? We would be happy to do a coaching session (or two, or three) with you and your young one on how you can start to implement this approach at home right away! Book a session online now.