Planning for a 20 month old - stuck!

[welshgirl]

I'm really struggling with individual planning for mindee 20months. My planning for him has basically been the same for the last few months, He is generally interested in the same things such as cars, balls and climbing, play park and instruments. I have done all the activities I can think of to relate to these and have tried introducing new activities such as messy play, role play cooking, shape sorters, paint, dough, small world etc, but he is not interested in it. He has a language delay and does not speak any words. I'm concerned that he is not showing any progression and I am not moving him on to the next step. I am following next steps by observing him and planning activites that he is interested in, but now they all read continue to..... as I have run out of new ideas.

[onceinabluemoon]

have you tried joining his interests? e.g. scooting cars through wet paint on paper and making tracks, painting leaves and printing with them, running marbles through paint, put rice on the drum and when he bangs it it will bounce off... If he likes climbing how about tunnels, dens, things to climb under/crawl through etc.

You've probably done all these already...

[welshgirl]

Thanks for the ideas, but tried all these, he loves playing in a sheet tent and tunnels, done pot and pan banging and he loved this, tried adding the cars to various forms of messy play and dough and he didn't like that as he does not like paint or goop or bubbles etc. Done balloons and streamers and shakers which he liked.......now I have run out of ideas :(

[The Juggler]

hon there is nothing wrong with a child hovering in the same stage for a little while.

sometimes they just need to practice and consolidate skills. I'd only be worried if you've noticed nothing new (no new speech, no new physical skills, no progression in concentration/creative play).

If you are joining in his play with comments and explaining his unspoken questions and explaining what he's doing then he is still developing as he'll be taking in the new knowledge you are giving him. You just wont see it until he is able to vocalise this or show it himself.

Don't worry too much. Maybe a few structured observations might help. Maybe once a week observe him in his fave activity. Really look at what he does, what you say to him, what he says. Then see if there is any progression. Sometimes it's something tiny. My 15 months loves playing with little people. When she started she picked them up and moved them, then she moved them around bumping them up and down, then she put them in things (carriages cars), now she moves them in and out of the dolls house/castle whatever and makes noises with them. This is over a period of about 3 months. That is a quite a development to me in her creative/imaginary play.

So maybe pick 2 activities, climbing say and cars and see how he changes how he climbs how he uses and plays with the cars and noises he makes and you can support him with giving him the vocabulary :thumbsup:

[Liverbird]

I also had a mindee that didn't like getting their hands mucky but when I put a large piece of paper on the floor and got them to run through paint and make footprints on the paper they loved it. Obviously this is much better to do outside but its an idea.