Opportunities for discoveries are abound with pretend play kitchens. Eyes widen and hearts beat a little faster when a toy kitchen is introduced into children's play. However, outside of basic fun, pretend play kitchens have another use that bridges relationships and fosters more investigative and physical learning for children with special needs. For some children that are either learning disabled or have some type of developmental issues, the incorporation of a pretend kitchen into their therapy can prove a valuable resource, as well as the source of many exciting and productive sessions.

Blind children can use play kitchens to learn about how to safely open and close cabinets, and to use different kitchen tools. Most play kitchens are designed in a way that will allow for lots of tactile learning. A child that has a vision impairment could feel their way along the kitchen's surface without fear of being hurt or having their finger to get caught on anything dangerous. They can also use the kitchen for learning how to sort objects, along with creating ways that they can identify objects by different characteristics.

Because pretend play kitchens are usually wide and designed similar to an "open plan" kitchen, children that do not have exceptional fine motor skills can still navigate and enjoy it. Those children that require the use of wheelchairs are able to move around the different components of the kitchen fairly easily, and will be able to discover the myriad ways that they can play with it despite their disability.

Children that have emotional or extreme physical disabilities may benefit from the use of play kitchens with regard to improving their communication skills. Many play kitchens, such as the KidKraft Deluxe Kitchen, include a number of communication tools including a telephone and bulletin board. From learning to leave notes for people to actually developing dialogues through role plays, pretend play kitchens are a perfect base for exploring different scenarios and encouraging
interpersonal exchanges.

Most wooden play kitchens are extremely sturdy which allows for them to be used in a physical therapy-type capacity. Whether the task is lifting to put something on a shelf, pulling to open a stove door, or stretching to turn the handles on a faucet, children with special needs will be able to use their play kitchen to increase their agility and to fine tune their motor skills. There are so many possibilities for making a physical therapy session more fun when a pretend kitchen is involved.

Intellectually, children with special needs sometimes have a harder time learning different scientific and mathematical concepts. The integration of play kitchens into their educational setting can provide them with a real life resource that can help them to better understand and apply the concepts that they are learning. Since they get more out of their play when it's more tactile, special needs children may be more apt to grasp higher thinking concept because of this learning component.

Some special needs children have a difficult time distinguishing what is truly edible versus what is not to be ingested at all. Caregivers can use pretend play kitchens to further educate and demonstrate to the children about food safety. For many of them, they need to get a firm understanding of where food should be stored and how they can get access to it. Just by taking the time to teach this important lesson, children with special needs may start to learn how to associate edible food from chemicals and other non-edible items that may be found in a kitchen.

Play kitchens can help caregivers to connect to children with special needs in a variety of ways. Experiential learning, coupled with lots of tactile exploration, can greatly benefit children that have many different special needs. Integration of a pretend kitchen into a child's educational and developmental sessions can be lots of fun. The benefits of these hands-on play opportunities make including play kitchens into a special needs child's daily life a must-have for exciting learning!