- Help your child learn by modeling or demonstrating how a toy can be used. You may need to begin by using hand-over-hand assistance to help your child activate a toy.
- Sit in front of your child as she plays so she can see your face. Respond to your child’s actions by changing your facial expression and providing physical touch to reinforce her actions.
- For children who need enhanced sound feedback, repeat the sounds the toy makes and emphasize each sound by pairing it with a visual cue or sign.
Toys/Features to Look For
- Toys that pair auditory feedback with visual, touch and movement sensations
- Toys with high-pitched or low bass sounds
- Toys with a volume control
- Toys that are visually interesting and/or offer different auditory feedback
- Toy parts that visually direct a child to the ways they can be used
- Toys with realistic actions, figures and sounds
Play Stages
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Experience Stage: Using senses to explore a toy
Click here to find out what you can do to help your child play and learn with this toy.
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Discovery Stage: The toy guides your child's play
Children are often driven by sight to explore the environment. Light-up effects, bright colors and movement will encourage your child to use his hands in a variety of ways to make things happen on this wagon. The blocks can be stacked, dropped down a hole, and placed in the spinning drum or teeter-totter; each movement results in a different action and reaction. Sounds and music add to the fun; you control the volume.
Click here to find out what you can do to help your child play and learn with this toy.
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Expanding Imagination Stage: Finding even more ways to play with a toy
To inspire pretend play, this toy features characters and objects that are likely to be familiar to your child. It’s designed to put your child in control of the many different things that can be done at this busy garage—making the cars go up and down in the elevators and ramps, driving the cars through the carwash, and making sure they have plenty of fuel for the road. This toy also includes realistic high-pitched sounds, including the dinging gas pump and a ringing telephone.
Click here to find out what you can do to help your child play and learn with this toy.
