Morgan Barton, SLP



If you want your child to make functional requests to express their wants and needs, they need to understand cause and effect! When children understand this concept, they see that their actions can lead to a reaction. This also helps them discover the power of their words! For example, they can make the connection that if they sign “more” they will get more of what they’re asking for.

Cause and Effect in Play

Incorporating cause and effect into your play at home helps build your child's attention and play skills. It also helps to build the foundations for their expressive language! The following toys/activities are some examples of cause and effect that you can incorporate into your child’s play routines:

• Light up toys
• Pop up toys
• Spin toys
• Car Ramps

Activities like these are beneficial because actions taken with the toy have a reaction. Let's say your child puts a car at the top of a car ramp. When the car is pushed (action), it slides down to the bottom of the ramp (reaction). This may seem basic to adults, but activities just like this are what help young children learn how the world around them works!

For school age children, check out this website for activity ideas teaching cause and effect. We've also included a graphic at the bottom to help demonstrate this concept.

Long-Term Benefits

Most children learn the connection between cause and effect in their early childhood, and this is vital to developing language and play skills. However, the benefits of learning this concept last a lifetime. By learning the relationship between cause and effect, children are better able to understand social cues and emotions. Additionally, this theme shows up almost everywhere in school. For example, by understanding this relationship your child will be able to more critically think through plots and characters when reading and writing. By working with your child on this concept now, you are setting them up for success throughout the rest of their life!

Every action has a reaction.

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