Yoga and Its Relation to Speech-Language Development 21Yoga exposes children to different types of words including nouns,
pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. Many of
these words express linguistic concepts, which describe location
(e.g. “in front of ” and “behind”), quantity (e.g. “less” and “more”),
attributes (e.g. “little” and “big”), time (e.g. “before” and “after”),
and feelings (e.g. “happy” and “sad”). In terms of comprehension,
the practice of yoga allows children the opportunity to follow
directions involving these different linguistic concepts.
Yoga can enhance emergent literacy skills in preschool-
aged children. Many children’s books, especially those that
feature animals, present opportunities to practice yoga poses.
The emergent literacy skill of phonological awareness involves
playing with sounds and words, such as creating rhymes.
Chanting provides an opportunity for children to play with
different sounds and syllabic structures. Phonological awareness
skills are important predictors for learning to read. In addition
to supporting emergent literacy, shared book reading provides a
context in which to enhance communication between adults and
children, through joint attention, as well as facilitate many other
aspects of language including following directions, vocabulary
and concepts acquisition, and sentence development.
Play is a domain of development that is related to language.
This connection is seen as the child moves from the late toddler
stage into the preschool years. Piaget (1962) proposed that play
and language in children are both examples of the symbolic
function, which involves using one object to stand for another.
Through yoga poses, children use their physical bodies in playful
ways to represent different animals, such as a lion, and objects,
such as a table. Children learn language through play. Play is so
important for young children’s development that it is considered
the work of childhood!
Executive functions have been the area most frequently
researched in the clinical/educational literature on the benefits