Parents often wonder how to start working on identification skills. Many times they think they need to buy fancy flashy cards, or new games and toys. But none of that is really all that necessary. We've talked before about using items in your own home for many different ways to play. Now, let's talk about how to use items in your home, or even own your own body to work on identification skills. If your child is not yet talking we can work on this in different ways, either through gestures, or by your child giving you an object or touching an object. When working on body parts, you can do this in the bath tub to make it more fun. You can work on telling your child which body part you are washing and after a while say something like "I'm washing your tummy, where is tummy" and see if your child points to his tummy. You can also do imitative play in the bathtub if you have a doll, so wash your child and have your child wash the same body part on the baby doll. This way he is learning the body parts, but is also learning some imaginative play skills at the same time. You can also work on making choices in the bat tub, if you have colored cups, asking your child which cup he wants you to use to pour water with (or use to pour water on his doll with), if you have different colored washcloths you can ask your child to point to which colored wash cloth he would like you to use to clean him, all the while you are naming the colors and he is listening, so even though he may not say the name himself yet, he is understanding that there is a difference between these two items you are asking him to choose from.
Some things you can do to work on identification skills with items you have around the house outside of the bathtub, during mealtimes, you can ask your child what he wants between two or three items. If he is speaking, he can tell you what he wants. If he is not yet speaking, he can point too or gesture towards what he wants. If your child is not yet gesturing, but you know what he would prefer, you can help buy using hand over hand to help him touch the item and saying the name of it (touch the carrots and say 'your want carrots, ok, lets eat carrots') and then give him the item so he associates the gesture with receiving the item, and will start to try to point or gesture on his own. This will start to help him more independently get his needs met. You can also play matching games with clothing items. You do not have to go out and buy fancy puzzles, or shape sorters. if you have different colored clothing or socks, you can work on matching this way. Just take 4 socks, 2 colors of each, so maybe one red pair and one white pair and show your child how to match them together (don't worry about folding them, that a much higher level skill than we are working on). you can then ask your child to find certain colored socks. IF this is too difficult, go back to putting 4-6 socks in a pile and having your child match them. Or 4-6 colored shirts in a pile and have your child match them.
Once your child is able to put things in a box without taking them out again, and is able to match, you can work on cleaning up and sorting. This should come as a relief to you. You can have your child start to clean up their own items! Now, I wouldn't try to have them clean up the whole living room. Especially if they are still on the young side (under 3). But, they can certainly put away a few items. It helps if a picture is on the box of toys to show where each item goes. Or, if you just have a general box where everything goes, then that's ok too, you can just let them know "clean up, put in box" But, if you have a separate box for separate toys, for instance, legos in one box, dolls in another and trucks in another, it helps for them to see some of the item in the box already so they know what goes in each box and how to match it to each one, or have a picture on the front of each box so they know what to match the toy they are putting away.
