Holiday Gift Guide – 5 Toys That Promote Child Development

Toys that promote development are imperative for all children, especially for individuals with Down syndrome. Young children must practice and be exposed to various activities to strengthen their motor skills and cognitive development. Children with Down syndrome benefit from extra support and practice through therapy and developmentally appropriate toys and activities. The toys listed below are an excellent guide for parents, caregivers, and educators (best for ages three and up)!

Fine Motor

Fine motor skills are activities in which involve the small muscles in the hands and wrists to make precise movements. Fine motor skills are essential for self-care, cooking, eating, school and play. Some examples include putting on socks, dialing the phone, opening and closing lids, using a fork or spoon, cutting with scissors, writing, building with blocks, and completing puzzles. Individuals with Down syndrome have low muscle tone, which affects all the muscles in the body, including those necessary for fine motor tasks. Therefore, practicing fine motor skills through toys and other activities at a young age is highly beneficial!

This Beehive Matching Game is a great gift idea to promote fine motor skills. Children use the clamps to pick up and place each bee in the hive and use them to take each bee out of the hive!

Other gifts can include Legos, Potato Head, beading activities, and train tracks.

Gross Motor

Unlike fine motor skills, gross motor skills include the whole body, such as core muscles and the muscles of the arms and legs. Some examples of gross motor skills are standing, jumping, and kicking. These skills are needed for activities like swimming, playing sports, and riding a bike. Strengthening gross motor skills also goes hand-in-hand with balance, hand-eye coordination, and supporting the neural pathways in the brain. Again, individuals with Down syndrome have low muscle, also known as hypotonia. Children with Down syndrome benefit from extra support and practice when learning to sit up and walk!

These Stepping Stones are a great way to get children up and moving! Kids can walk, run and jump on the stepping blocks. Children can design their own obstacle course or make-believe with games like The Floor is Lava!

Other gifts can include rock walls, slides, balance beams, and balls.

Language Development

Many parents understand the importance of language development, especially around two to three years of age when children are expressive with their emotions. There are many ways to promote language development without toys, and books are an excellent gift for children of all ages!

Individuals with Down syndrome are outstanding visual learners, and reading at a very young age is a great way to promote language development! All children greatly benefit from reading the same books often as well. It may become repetitive for you, but your child’s brain grows as you read to them every day.

This Pete the Cat phonics box includes 12-mini-books featuring short and long vowel sounds. The books are simple and fun and a great gift for early readers!

Other gifts can include flashcards and picture books.

Cognitive Development

A child’s cognitive development is how they think, explore, and solve problems. Promoting cognitive development can look like talking with your baby, allowing them to explore toys, completing puzzles together, reading to your child, and expanding on their interests and questions!

As we mentioned earlier, individuals with Down syndrome are great visual learners and quickly understand through activities like puzzles and matching. Children and adults with Down syndrome tend to have stronger receptive language than expressive language, which means taking information in is easier than showing it outwardly. To others, it may seem that someone with Down syndrome may not understand an activity when, in fact, the child understands it well. Children and adults with Down syndrome are intelligent and capable!

A Veggie Sorting Set is a great toy to practice many skills and promote cognitive development in all children! It includes activities such as sorting by color, numbers, and shapes! The child can practice counting and matching while having fun planting and picking veggies.

Other gifts can include puzzles and similar matching and sorting games.

Social-Emotional Development

Social-emotional development is how children experience, express, and manage their emotions. Understanding your feelings and others’ feelings are the core features of social-emotional development. Children with healthy social-emotional development are likely to perform better at school too!

Individuals with Down syndrome feel the same feelings like any other person and need support promoting their social-emotional development. This can be done through labeling and talking through emotions, reading books about empathy, and leading by example.

Hand 2 Mind’s Learn About Feelings set is a great toy to promote social-emotional development! It includes pictures for children to recognize emotions in real-life situations. The activity also has cartoon images of children with different feelings; the child uses blocks with the same images to match what the child is feeling!

Other gifts can include books about empathy and dolls/figurines with facial expressions.

We hope this Gift Guide helps you and your family pick out the best toys for your little ones this holiday season!