Symbolic Level 4: 2 ½ years
Play:

• Represents events less frequently experienced or observed (impressive or traumatic events: doctor/nurse sick child, teacher/child, store/shopping).
  • Your child begins to show you what they remember of daily life. She may place the dolly in the car seat and talk about going to the doctor, as their sequencing skills emerge. Model for your child as they allow or if they get stuck. “Have a seat here dolly. The doctor will be right here.”

Language:

• Responds to Wh- questions appropriately accept WHY and asks WHY often inappropriately and doesn’t attend to the answer, asks Wh- questions usually puts the Wh- at the beginning of the sentence.
  • While playing doctor, your child may ask “Why are you crying?”. This may be a mimicked sentence they have heard you say before. Even if your child doesn’t appear to listen, play along with their question/concern for their baby doll, saying “Aww. The shot hurt your leg.” Model further in the sequence and take the dolly to get a bandaid.

Symbolic Level 5: 3 years
Play:

• Continues previous stages but play now has sequence (child mixes cake, bakes it, eats it, washes dishes) the sequence evolves though, not planned. Reenacts experiences with new outcomes.
  • Dolly will take on many new adventures with your child at this age. Dolly may go shopping with your little one. Together with dolly, dinner is stirred and served. As your child’s sequence expands in play, so will their vocabulary usage.

Language:

• Uses past tense (I ate), uses future tense (I’m gonna eat).
  • Whether you are actively playing with your child or watching from a distance, you can both take turns narrating your play. “I would like (future tense) a brownie. Can you make one for me?” And once you have gobbled the brownie, “Ooh I ate it all. More please.” With your help, your child’s play scheme will go on and on.

Symbolic Level 6: 3-3 ½ years
Play:

• Uses toys to create a scene (barn yard), uses blocks for imaginative play and represent various things (block can be a car and an airplane), uses doll as participant in play.
  • Blocks will become even more enjoyable at this point, as they can be used as a blank slate to represent another item. “Hello, the phone (block) is for dolly.” The possibilities are endless as your child reaches this stage.

Language:

• Descriptive vocab: color, shape, size, texture, gives dolls dialogue (he said), changes speech depending on listener.
  • It’s at this point in time that your child may becomes “picky”, as their number of known describing words increases. “Dolly wants the blue block, not the red block.” Your child will continue to imitate what their hear in their daily life, even if it means scolding dolly or comforting dolly, as you might do. This includes changes in pitch and facial expressions.

Symbolic Level 7: 3 ½ - 4 years
Play:

• Begins to problem-solve, plans ahead (what if), builds 3-D structures to represent structures they have seen.
  • A child’s critical thinking skills are really emerging at this point. Their block towers will transform into skyscrapers. They will still look to you to learn fun new ways to build and play, but will surprise you when they create something totally new without assistance.

Language:

• Verbalizes intentions and future events (might, will, would, could), conjunctions (and, but, so, because), begins to respond appropriately to WHY and HOW questions.
  • I appreciate this stage as a parent, because the child’s desire to talk about future events and respond to Why/How questions may allow me to stop a disaster before it happens (i.e. taking their favorite dolly to the potty) or figuring out Why/How something happened (i.e. why the blocks are in the toilet). Beyond that, your child’s mind is beginning to make so many connections to the world around them and taking careful note of how you use language.

Symbolic Level 8: 5 years
Play:

• PLANS a sequence of pretend events (organizes what he needs ex: other children and objects), coordinates more than one event happening at one time, highly imaginative (sets scene without realistic props), full cooperative play.
  • Don’t be surprised when your kitchen utensils disappear and clothing is strung out of the drawers. Your child will begin to combine play items and everyday items to achieve a goal in their complex play. Though it may be messy, encourage your child to use various household items. Their may not be a toy for them to achieve their play goal, but an everyday item may work.

Language:

• Uses relational terms (then, when, first, next).
  • As your child’s sequences and play schemes become more elaborate, you may hear them plan aloud to make their ideas come to life. Though not all children have a running narrative while they play, many love to show off to you after they have completed their agenda. This means (with encouragement), they may retell what they did.

Phase 1: Presymbolic
Presymbolic Level 1: 8-12 months
Play:

• Awareness of object when not seen (Ex: finds toy hidden under scarf)
  • Put a block in a box and set the lid on top. Your child will enjoy taking the lid off and discovering the block. They will also enjoy “waking up” the baby that is napping under a blanket.
• Means-end behavior: crawls to get toy.
  • Stack up a small tower of blocks. This will likely entice your child to crawl to you and engage in your play, likely by knocking over the tower.
• Uses some toys appropriately, doesn’t mouth all toys.

Language:

• No true language, but makes requests and commands.
  • During this time, you can begin to encourage your child to vocalize, sign, or verbalize to request. This is a good time to model signs and words such as “more”, “up”, “down”, “boom”, “baby”, etc. These words also include sounds that your child may already be producing such as /b/, /m/, /p/, or /d/.

Presymbolic Level 2: 13-17 months
Play:

• Purposeful exploration of toys.
  • Your child may begin to attempt to stack blocks or even build single level structures, like fences, by lining up blocks.
• Hands toy to adult if unable to operate.
  • As your child tries to learn how to build with blocks, begin to encourage them by helping them hand-over-hand to build or even offering them an open hand. This helps children learn to initiate requesting help.

Language:

• Makes commands, requests, protests, labels, responds, greets.
  • As your child’s various uses for language continues to expand, remember to give them TIME (showing them that you are patiently and expectantly waiting) for them to initiate their own requests, respond to you, or tell you about what they are seeing/doing. Along the way, try to model language at their level, rather than asking questions (i.e. Mom: “Big block” Child “Little block”) to stimulate language. Vocabulary to model includes: Greeting (Hello, Hey), Protest/Reject (Stop, No), Request Assistance/Action or Object (Help, Can you/Open, Do)

Phase 2: Symbolic
Symbolic Level 1: 17-19 months 
Play:

• ​Autosymbolic- pretends to sleep, eat, drink from empty cup. Uses most objects appropriately, tool use (uses stick to get toy), finds toys invisibly hidden.
  • Your child will likely become more interested in the baby doll at this point. This is a great time to model daily activities on the baby doll, like feeding it or putting it to sleep. Your child is beginning to pretend to sleep and feed themselves, so they will start to draw the connection.
• Uses most objects appropriately, tool use (uses stick to get toy), finds toys invisibly hidden.
  • In this stage you will see your child learning appropriate object use. This means, they may begin stacking blocks and treating their baby doll like a person. Your child will also begin to find toys that are out of sight. At night the toys are cleaned up and put in their place and your child’s developing play skills will allow them to find a specific toy the next morning without even seeing it.​

Language:

• ​Beginning of true communication: functional and semantic relations- recurrence, existence, nonexistence, rejections, denial, agent, object, action/state, location.
  • Their vocabulary is continuing to grow and expand at this point. Words that you may be hearing from your child (and modeling for them to learn too) include: recurrence (More, Again), existence (Look, There), nonexistence (None, Gone), rejections/denial (All done, No), agent (Boy, Mommy), object (Block, Doll), action (Go, Come, Up), state (Away, All gone, Dirty), location (In, Up).​

Symbolic Level 2: 19-22 months 
Play:

• ​Symbolic play extends beyond the child’s self. Plays with dolls (feeding, hair brushing), child pretends to be active with more than one person (feeds baby, himself, and mommy), combines two toys (pours tea from pot into cup).
  • ​Now that your child wants to play pretend with the baby, consider drawing their attention to your daily activities, even alternating carrying out activities with your child and then the baby (i.e. giving your child a drink from a cup, then the baby gets a “drink” from a cup too).

Language:

• ​Refers to people/objects when not present.
  • When mommy or daddy leaves for work, that is a great time to describe what’s happening (i.e. “Daddy drives the car” and “Mommy’s working.”)
• Beginning of word combinations: agent-action, agent-object, action-object, attributive, dative, action-locative, object-locative, possessive.
  • As you play with your child, their use of language and their word combinations will continue to expand. This is a great time to use your daily routines and play with them to teach them new concepts, like: locations, actions, and agents. Try to make the new words you teach them stand out. Modeling single concepts at a time is also very helpful. While playing with blocks, try to show pick one locative (i.e. “under”) and see if the two of you can find all the ways to make the block(s) be “under”.​
  • Here are some examples of the types of language your child may begin using at this age: agent-action (I jump, Daddy go), agent-object (Mommy’s car, My ball), action-object (Ball roll, car drive), attributive (Old, dirty), dative (Give to me), action-locative (Go under, walk on), object-locative (Ball over, sock on), possessive (Mine, yours).

I'm sure many of you have heard professionals talk about the importance of play during childhood. As the American Poet Diane Ackerman said, "Play is our brain's favorite way of learning." I could not agree more. If you have watched a child play, over time you will see their motor skills, cognitive skills, and speech/language skills develop. As a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), observing a child's play can provide me with very useful information about their development. In fact, research shows that from birth to 3 or 3.5 years of age, play skills strongly correlate to cognitive development.

Extensive research has been conducted by various professionals, including SLPs, to map out play development as it relates to other areas of development (I even conducted my thesis on the topic of play and language development). Arguably the most well-known and frequently-referenced is the Westby Play Scale by Dr. Carol Westby. In her play scale, she describes stages of play from 9 months to 5 years of age. However, even if your child is not meeting these play milestones at the ages described, you can still follow this developmental outline to predict what play and language skills may emerge next in their development. 

Westby Play Scale
Phase 1: Presymbolic
Presymbolic Level 1: 8-12 months
Play: Awareness of object when not seen (Ex: finds toy hidden under scarf)
Means-end behavior: crawls to get toy.
Uses some toys appropriately, doesn’t mouth all toys.
Language: No true language, but makes requests and commands.

Presymbolic Level 2: 13-17 months
Play: Purposeful exploration of toys.
Hands toy to adult if unable to operate.
Language: Makes commands, requests, protests, labels, responds, greets.

Phase 2: Symbolic
Symbolic Level 1: 17-19 months
Play: Autosymbolic- pretends to sleep, eat, drink from empty cup.
Uses most objects appropriately, tool use (uses stick to get toy), finds toys invisibly hidden.
Language: Beginning of true communication: functional and semantic relations- recurrence, existence, nonexistence, rejections, denial, agent, object, action/state, location.

Symbolic Level 2: 19-22 months
Play: Symbolic play extends beyond the child’s self. Plays with dolls (feeding, hair brushing), child pretends to be active with more than one person (feeds baby, himself, and mommy), combines two toys (pours tea from pot into cup).
Language: Refers to people/objects when not present.
Beginning of word combinations: agent-action, agent-object, action-object, attributive, dative, action-locative, object-locative, possessive.

Symbolic Level 3: 2 years
Play: represents daily experiences (plays house), events or short and isolated, no true sequencing, events short isolated- no true sequencing, block play is build up/ knock down.
Language: Uses all of the above in short phrases/sentences. Use morphological markers such as: possessives, plurals, present progressive and can answer Wh- questions.

Symbolic Level 4: 2 ½ years
Play: represents events less frequently experienced or observed (impressive or traumatic events: doctor/nurse sick child, teacher/child, store/shopping).
Language: Responds to Wh- questions appropriately accept WHY and asks WHY often inappropriately and doesn’t attend to the answer, asks Wh- questions usually puts the Wh- at the beginning of the sentence.

Symbolic Level 5: 3 years
Play: Continues previous stages but play now has sequence (child mixes cake, bakes it, eats it, washes dishes) the sequence evolves though, not planned. Reenacts experiences with new outcomes.
Language: Uses past tense (I ate), uses future tense (I’m gonna eat).

Symbolic Level 6: 3-3 ½ years
Play: Uses toys to create a scene (barn yard), uses blocks for imaginative play and represent various things (block can be a car and an airplane),uses doll as participant in play.
Language: descriptive vocab: color, shape, size, texture, gives dolls dialogue (he said), changes speech depending on listener.

Symbolic Level 7: 3 ½ - 4 years
Play: Begins to problem-solve, plans ahead (what if), builds 3-D structures to represent structures they have seen.
Language: Verbalizes intentions and future events (might, will, would, could), conjunctions (and, but, so, because), begins to respond appropriately to WHY and HOW questions.

Symbolic Level 8: 5 years
Play: PLANS a sequence of pretend events (organizes what he needs ex: other children and objects), coordinates more than one event happening at one time, highly imaginative (sets scene without realistic props), full cooperative play.
Language: Uses relational terms (then, when, first, next).

NOTE: FULL COMPETENCE OF THESE PLAY SKILLS IS NOT DEVELOP UNTIL 10-12 YEARS