Halloween is a fun time of year for kids and an easy theme to introduce into therapy. Today I want to share a few books on that theme that are simple, yet fun and can be incorporated into a language or articulation lesson.
Last week I went to the home of my little friends on the autism spectrum. Books aren’t always his favorite activity and I try hard to find stories with simple, funny, stories linked to his experiences. First we popped popcorn in a pot with a glass lid. What fun to see the kernels pop and overflow, just like the story, Popcorn, by Frank Asch. We took pictures of the steps so we could order them later in re-telling our activity. Then we read the book and took advantage of all the opportunities to ask wh-questions relating to the pictures supporting the story, and describe the action, especially on the party page.
Sheep Trick or Treat by Nancy Shaw begins with “As the Halloween moon rises, sheep are fixing up disguises.” These well costumed sheep go trick or treating through the farm and encounter some wolves on the way home. Good thing they are dressed up to scare their enemies and arrive home safely to eat their treats! Shaw’s clever series of sheep stories in rhyme are great for pre-literacy skills as well as articulation practice with the /sh/ sound.
Aaaarrgghh! Spider! by Lydia Monks is one of my favorites for the season. This tale is about a lovable, persistent spider who wants to be adopted as the family pet. It is a good story to talk about feelings and associated facial expressions of surprise, fear, happiness and excitement.
Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell is another seasonal book that is a simple, concrete story about the experiences of going to the farm and picking apples and pumpkins, and returning home to carve the pumpkin and go trick or treating. This book could be used as a social story for children on the autism spectrum before a fall field trip, pumpkin carving or trick or treating.
If you work with children on the autism spectrum, please let me know what books have been interesting to your little clients. I would like to develop a list to share with other speech therapists and parents. You can comment below or e-mail me directly at sherry@playonwords.com. Thanks!
I will admit that I had been a little apprehensive to take on articulation cases that involved lateral lisps. Somehow they presented more of a challenge until I took an excellent course by speech pathologist, Pam Marshalla, put on by The Bureau of Educational and Research, BER. So I want to share my little success story.
First of all, my five year-old client is a smart, hard-working little girl who has already corrected her /k/ and /g/ sounds, but has a frontal lisp on /s/, and lateral lisp on /sh/. In her course, Pam encouraged us therapists to abide by traditional norms if a sound is following developmental steps. For instance, when do you correct a frontal lisp on /s/? Traditionally you would work on a correct /s/ when a child is 7-8 years old since they are on the typical developmental tract. However, a lateral lisp is being produced incorrectly and is not a step on the normal development of that sound, so it should be corrected as soon as possible.
So following those guidelines, I will wait to correct this girl’s frontal lisp on /s/ and I got to work on her lateral lisp on /sh/. Pam outlines the steps in correcting a lateral lisp for /sh/ in her course and Resource Handbook, “Practical Therapy Techniques for Persistent Articulation Errors: Frontal Lisp, Lateral Lisp and Distorted R.” So I got out my manual and used what I had learned to shape this little girl’s lateral lisp into a forward flow of air.
We started with producing “e” and feeling the sides of the tongue against the side teeth. I actually had her move her tongue forward and back, rubbing the sides of her tongue against the inside of her teeth to feel the placement that will eventually stop lateral air flow. Then simply breathe ( no voice) in and out in the “e” position, slowly round the lips and you start to hear an approximation of /sh/. It took me just a few sessions to get the sound consistently enough to start saying some words like “she” and “shoe.”
Whenever she has trouble getting a forward air flowing /sh/ we back up and go through the steps again. Midway she was able to go from “e” to /sh/. Mom learned the steps too so she could help for practice in my absence.
So if you want to round out your articulation therapy skills, look for Pam’s courses on her website. She has vast experience working with those persistent, tough cases that we all encounter.
What techniques do you fine successful in eliminating lisps? Share in the comments below.
Many speech delayed children have apraxia of speech or apraxic-like characteristics: inability to consistently repeat speech models, difficulty with the motor programming for speech,
In my work with preschoolers who have these characteristics, I have found several materials valuable, one of which are the Speech-Language-Reading Connection Books pictured on the left. Each book features a consonant, vowel, or vowel-consonant combination that is highlighted and repeated throughout the simple silly story. These goofy tales appeal to kids. In Bunny Bop, the bunny “bippity bop, bop. bops” to various bushes–a berry bush, banana bush, green bean bush and even a bagel bush. Today, my little student who is finally repeating single words, attempted “bippety bop bop” with several syllables. Another favorite is Hanna Hippo who laughs with a “ha ha ha,” “hee hee hee,” and a “ho ho ho.” Timmy the Turtle is too slow for the race and lamented “Tut, tut, tut,” he’s too slow. A wizard showed up to fix Timmy’s feet until he had “magic feet” that could not be beat.
Let me know what materials you find helpful in working with kids who exhibit apraxic-like characteristics.
Blue Orange Games, known for their “hot games for a cool planet,” continue to invent clever games for kids that are friendly to our environment. Their latest member of the family, “ChickyBoom,” calls on fine motor skill and balance, requiring slow, precise movements to remove a chick, bale of hay or wagon wheel delicately placed along the chick’s perch. Take turns plucking pieces off the balance beam without letting it topple. After the perch is dumped, collect your pieces and call upon your math skills to count up the numbers on each one to see who has the highest number to declare victory.
This simple game of balance, math and strategy can be used effectively as a reinforcer for articulation and language therapy. I have written in a previous blog of the merits of good board games for teaching social language to children on the autism spectrum, and this is another such game that is simple enough with quick turns, but can be used to teach social skills as well as concepts such as high/low, same/different, heavy/ light and center.
I’ve used it to reinforce articulation learning by practicing sounds and taking a turn, or teach language skills like irregular past tense verbs as we “took” off a piece, “saw” where we put it, “put” it in our pile, “got” the block in the center, or declared that the chick “fell.”
Kids love the impish looking chicks and try to pluck them off first.
See my full review of “ChickyBoom.”
Good board games require quick turns and lots of thinking. “Gobblet Gobblers” is a perfect beginning game of strategy utilizing visual-spacial memory, assessing options, and setting up strategy. This takeoff from Tic-Tac-Toe utilizes hungry, wide mouthed characters to hop to an open space on the board, or gobble up a smaller opponent. Add a new piece to the game or move an existing one but remember who is under your piece–you might be setting up your opponent for a win.
Try this game with children on the autism spectrum to teach social pragmatic skills and concepts such as over/under, first/next/last, diagonal/straight, big/little, small/medium/large or tall/short. Language delayed children can benefit from learning these concepts, describing their actions and telling what if?
Gobble and giggle your way through learning!
See my full review of “Gobblet Gobblers.”
Whenever therapy needs a little excitement, I bring out the glitter glue! This week I added a pad of paper, markers, plastic wiggle eyes and glitter glue to my bag. Preschool girls and boys alike just love to squeeze glitter glue all over their picture.
Again it can be used to elicit many sounds or language targets that you are working on. I got an initian “sh” because we had to “shake” the glitter bottle several times before squeezing out the glitter, or “is” for “that is the purple.” Use it as a reinforcer for what ever you are working on.
Here we are making a butterfly who happens to have pink jiggle eyes. Crafts are always interesting to kids and especially glue because it is messy. It usually doesn’t take long for kids to figure out that it is more fun to move the glitter glue around with their hands.
A little aside today–this is what makes my profession funny. The little girl who was creating this masterpiece looked up at me and said, “You look like a grandma.” I checked out what I was wearing to see if I was a bit frumpy today, and asked, “Why?” She said, “Because of your neck!” I didn’t ask any further questions:)
Any speech therapy practice is constantly changing–clients are being dismissed and new ones are beginning therapy for the first time. It occurred to me that I should blog about some of the expectations that parents have who are new to the preschool therapy process.
- The speech therapist has all the answers. We don’t know all the answers immediately. I am often asked, “How long will this take?” Will he learn to talk?” I tell parents that I don’t have a crystal ball and can’t answer those questions. Certainly, after I have seen a child for several weeks or months, I have a better idea of whether they are responding quickly to therapy or if they are progressing more slowly, whether it is a simple delay or might involve a disorder. This can be shared with parents although kids are always surprising me and they may take a jump in their progress at any time.
- Things should go smoothly from the start. Kids need to adjust to the therapy process. Even though preschool therapy should be provided through play so kids love it, it is still an adjustment for a 2 or 3 year-old to pay attention to an adult for 45 minutes to an hour. It is up to the therpist to change activities often enough to keep a child’s interest, but intially you might be just teaching that the child has to say something to get something (Isn’t that the jist of communication?) Up until now, a language delayed preschooler has developed their own tactics for getting what they want–ranging from screaming, grunting, pointing etc. Now they are being rewarded for verbalizing, even if it isn’t clear, to get what they want, which is the beginning of successful communication.
- I want to be involved but how? Parents need to be educated too. Parents should be an integral part of preschool speech therapy. Hopefully they can be sitting in on the sessions, learning how to encourage specific speech and language progress. I always share exactly what I am working on, how I am doing it, and how much to push without ever frustrating a child. Give a list of words, phrases or concepts for the parent to reinforce until you see the child the next time.
- If my child said it once, he should be able to do it again. Not so. Some kids can consistently repeat a new sound or word, but often they need prompting to say it again. If they can’t repeat the sound or word after the therapist is gone, simply keep modeling it in your own speech with no expectations put on them, “Here comes the car. The car is turning, Stop the car.” Your child might repeat “car” after all that modeling by you, or you might hear it later on. Some preschoolers are late in talking because they have difficulty motor planning the speech sounds (apraxia). In that case, it will take a lot of practice before they can easily say sounds and words.
Don’t we all want to get the most out of our therapy sessions while having fun?? I find it challenging to find fun activities that don’t monopolize the session, but leave room for plenty of responses by the child. Therefore, games that have quick uncomplicated turns are best.
Lately I have been using puzzles to great advantage with my kids from 2-4 years of age. They provide quick reinforcing turns, and are interesting to the kids. If you pick the right puzzle by ability and interest, the kids can’t wait to give your several attempts at their articulation or language target to get a reinforcing piece. Some of my favorites are:
- Lauri puzzles are made from crepe foam rubber so they are easy to grip and fun to push into the cut-outs. There is a variety of amusing subjects like construction, transportation, nature and castles. With the large assembly piece around the puzzle, and guide beneath, kids can see where the pieces go.
- Melissa and Doug chunky wooden puzzles are winners with preschoolers. I can’t tell you how many kids will attempt to communicate just to get the chunky wooden train or boat cut-out. An advantage of these puzzles is that they become pretend play pieces outside of the puzzle as you stand them up on the table. Duncan made a parade of boats and trains as he said his sounds and collected a puzzle piece. My favorites are “Vehicles” and “Safari.”
- Infantino’s “My First Puzzles” are a first introduction to a multi-piece puzzle. There are 2, 4 and 6 piece puzzles to put together and feel accomplished at completion!
- Frank Schaffer’s “Giant Fire Engine Floor Puzzle“ has 24 jumbo pieces to construct the fire truck which stretches four feet long. Kids hardly know they are practicing their speech and language targets as they’re anxious to receive a piece and make this puzzle.
- Shure’s “Chunky World Magnetic Tow Truck” has thick, easy to grab vehicles with bright engaging pictures on each side. The powerful magnetic tow truck (that even hung on to my clothes dryer!) picks up the cars, trucks, buses and campers to kids’ delight.
As speech pathologists, we are always looking for new activities to keep our students engaged and improve their speech and language skills. Sometimes we just need a change of scenery ourselves!
I was reminded of this when we had an uncanny week of summer weather 2 weeks ago. I arrived at a child’s house and he was outside sending matchbox cars down the slide into his plastic pool. Instead of doing our usual routine we just stayed outside and played with the cars, using them as a reinforcement for articulation productions. As the cars got ready to race down the slide, we used it as an opportunity for a language activity as well–predicting who would win, and then naming the first, middle and last cars as they crashed into the water. Somehow I got an entire hour of “work” done on his sounds that usually interest him for a short time.
Preschoolers love the out-of-doors as a backdrop for therapy. I have taken walks and gotten a first word out of a child–”rock” as we pass the same stream and throw rocks in the water. I have used a bale of hay in the backyard (Dad was seeding the lawn) as a home for dinosaurs to talk and move, a slide to send blades of grass and sticks down, a bucket to collect rocks, ants and sticks, all as the child is naming or attempting to name his surroundings.
Parents, keep in mind that the outdoors is a whole new backdrop for vocabulary and interesting things to explore and name.
Parents of children who I work with are always looking for fun and effective products to use with their kids to promote their skills. One of the best catalogues of early intervention products I have found is “Beyond Play.” The products are clearly divided by category–early games, sensory exploration, fine motor, dramatic play, social emotional, cause effect, language, communication and others.
What I like is that they include specific products geared to children with special needs but also commercial games and toys designed for the typical population that are great for kids with delays and deficits. This allows kids with special needs to play a fun game with typical peers, with everyone engaged in the fun. Since I review mainstream products to be used for children with special needs, I was pleased to see some of my favorites, “Coocoo,” “I Spy,” and “Snails Pace Race.”
So if you are a parent of a child with special needs or an educator working with kids, take a look at this excellent collection of products for kids to have fun while learning!
