Bubbles!
Let’s talk about bubbles! The weather is getting warmer which means more outside time! Thank goodness! I know my girls and I are ready to be outside! My daughters, like most children, love bubbles! It doesn’t matter a child’s age, bubbles are always a winning activity. Bubbles are always my activity of choice when meeting a new child for therapy or when a child is demonstrating behaviors and I am trying to help calm them.
Not only are bubbles fun, but they provide the opportunity to work on speech and language! First, let’s talk about how they help with speech. If your child is old enough to try to blow bubbles, the act of blowing can help with oral motor skills. It helps strengthen the muscles for lip rounding and puckering. These muscles help with articulation and strengthening them helps with speech clarity. It also helps your child learn to control his airflow and have good breath support. All of these skills are helpful with speech.
When playing with bubbles, you can also target early developing sounds such as /p/ and /b/. When I blow bubbles and my daughters are trying to pop them, I say “pop, pop, pop.” As I say it, I emphasize the sounds. At first, your child might not imitate this, but if you continue to do this, he will start trying to imitate the sounds.
You can build on this by saying, “pop bubble” or “bubble pop.”
Targeting the word “bubble” is also good. It may sound more like “bubba” when your child tries to say it, but that is okay!
Now, let’s talk language!
You can start blowing bubbles, and then stop. See if your child will ask for more bubbles.
Requesting can be done in multiple ways. Maybe your child picks up the bubbles and hands them to you. Maybe he points at them. Maybe he looks at you and then the bubbles. Maybe he cries or screams. All of these are forms of communication.
If your child chooses to cry or scream, try to work on a more functional way for him to communicate. You can hand him the bubbles and then have him hand them to you. While you do this, you say something like, “Oh, do you want more bubbles? More bubbles.” Then, you blow the bubbles.
Other ways to work on requesting are using the sign for “more” or working on imitation of one of the following words: more, go, bubbles. It all depends on where your child is at developmentally on what is the most appropriate.
You can also build in other communication opportunities while blowing bubbles. You can do the routine of “ready, set, go.” Make sure your child knows the routine. Then, you can say “Ready, set,....(wait)...go!” You pause to see if your child will say “go.” If they don’t, that’s okay. Go ahead and say it and continue on. The point is to provide him the opportunity to say it.
You can also target “all gone” or “no more” when all the bubbles have popped.
“Stop” and “all done” can be targeted to end the activity.
Bubbles are a fun activity to do with children, and they provide several great communication opportunities! So, go blow some bubbles!