Cause and Effect Toys

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Cause and effect is an important skill for kids to learn! According to Piaget, children achieve this developmental milestone around 18-24 months of age during the sensorimotor stage (http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development). I’m an elementary based SLP right now, but I’ve worked in private practice in the past and currently my school houses preschool classes with 2 year olds.

So what to do when you get a child who doesn’t yet grasp cause and effect? Play! Below are some of my favorite cause and effect toys:

1. Popper toys: You can find these at Target, Amazon, or other major retailers. Some examples are below (just click on the picture). These delight kids of all ages and giggles were heard all around when I pulled these out!
   

 2. Sesame Street Cookie Monster Crunch Toy: I regret that I misplaced this toy when I switched jobs. It’s adorable! You feed cookie monster and he talks. The cookies drop into the backpack on his back; it’s easy to work on simple requests and verbs too.

3. Top popper: I don’t know if that’s what these are actually called, but I loved them as a kid. You can find them in most party supply stores. They are these little dome like rubber things that look like half a circle. You invert it and put it on the table, and wait for it to pop up. Sometimes they can go pretty high! Watch out – they are small, so could be a choking hazard.

4. Wind up toys: You can find all sorts of these and they are definitely fun to play with. It’s also a great way to work on requesting later on, because often they are difficult for the child to “turn on” by themselves.

5. Magnetic wand and chips: These seriously work for kids of all ages (again, the chips can be a choking hazard with really young kids)! I found this one by accident with a 2 year old once. He seemed fascinated by the wand, so I dumped a pile of chips on the floor and we put the wand close – the chips jumped up to the wand and he gleefully kept wanting to do it after that.

Those are some of my tried and true favorites.  While these are generally geared towards younger kids, if you do have students who are functioning at this level, they can be adapted to work on requesting, verbs, etc. I’d love to hear how you target cause and effect!