1. The Power of Play;
Effective Play-Based Therapy and
Early Intervention

2. Overview of Play: What do we mean by play in the context of Early
Intervention? This slide will contain music.
• Play is freely chosen,
intrinsically motivated and
personally directed
• Play is an activity by
children that is guided
more by imagination than
fixed rules
• Play is the spontaneous
activity of children

3. It’s Art Time….
• YOUNG CHILDREN LEARN BEST
THROUGH PLAY THAT IS RELEVANT
AND MEANINGFUL TO THEIR LIFE!
• The benefits of play include:
Learning opportunities, problem-solving skills,
enhances concentration, discovering,
interacting, absorbing, experiencing,
exploring and the opportunity to practice
new skills.

4. Ready, Set, GO!!!
• During Gross Motor, we get moving! We play in the ballpit area,
playground or play in the cars and slides.

5. The stages of Play
• These slides will contain the
stages of play and examples
• This slide will also contain a
video on “Container Babies”
(how children are kept in
carseats, strollers, etc. for
longer periods of time these
days, leading to head
deformation and delays in
cognition, speech, motor.

6. It’s time for MUSIC
shake, shake, shake

7. Ideas for play in the home –
family participation

8. Play-don’t Therapize
• To keep therapy natural, strive not
to “therapize” the child
• Therapize (verb) To create
unnatural, deliberate, passive
behaviors in young children as a
result of direct therapy
• True play-based
therapy –vs-
Traditional therapy
Example table will be
here