Games make speech therapy fun but carefully selected games can also advance a child’s progress toward their IEP goals. “Order’s Up” by Gamewright, is not only loads of fun, but it can have language benefits too: kids learn categories of food–entrees, drinks, and how to apply wild cards like “Special of the Day” which can be hard for a child with more concrete language abilities. I have played this with children on the autism spectrum and one little boy didn’t want to use the “Special of the Day” card because he didn’t understand its advantage. As with all games, turn taking and following directions are great skills to learn with “Orders Up.” Here is my review:
Things are hopping at the Ring-A-Ding Diner as players compete to quickly fill their orders before their opponents do. A game of fast reactions, “Orders Up” builds excitement as players race to ding the bell, winning the right to add a card to their array of yummy dishes. Select two food cards filled with delectable delights like ice cream floats, spaghetti, or a banana split for you to match. Roll the dice and follow the options to try to be the first one to cover all the food dishes on the card to fill your order. Wild cards like “Special of the Day” or “Free Entree” add to the strategy of the game. Kids hope for the dice to land on the picture of the silver bell, so they can be the first to ring it, even if their hand gets smashed by others, competing to be first.
The opinions expressed in this review are solely of the author. “Order’s Up” was provided for review by Gamewright.
I was at a planning meeting this week with a team that I collaborate with as a private speech pathologist. My client is on the autism spectrum and I had just completed a diagnostic evaluation. I shared my results of language testing and talked about what I learned from observing his behaviors during the tasks. One one test, the first portion gave a field of four drawings to chose the answer from. During the second half there were no visual cues to help him with his answer. He got every item wrong after the visual cues were not given.
On the concepts section of the test, he failed several items that I know he knew in other contexts. It was hard for him to pick out the correct line drawing from a field of four that represented simple concepts.
After sharing these observations, the team started to develop goals for his upcoming year based on the testing. One of the members of the team said, “Well, we don’t want to teach to a test but I think we should teach him test taking skills–how to scan several pictures for an answer, how to listen to a paragraph and stay focused to answer a question, and how to be more familiar with two dimensional drawings for his answers.
I thought that was a great point. Many children with special needs will be tested at least yearly to determine progress and goals. How helpful for them to learn strategies like, “Look at all the pictures and then pick the one that answers the question.”
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This is part two of my blog about the advantages of having a typical peer join your speech therapy session. Yesterday I talked about the impact a typical peer can have on a child with autism in play. In my speech therapy sessions, I always try to include a time of reading books, as soon as a child will tolerate it and displays joint attention so they can follow the story.
I find that my kids that I work with who have autism, tend to show more interest, stay with the book longer and get more engaged with a typical peer in on the lesson. Last week we were reading, When Dinosaurs Came with Everything by Lise Broach. In the story, to the little boy’s delight, everywhere he goes on errands with his mom-to the bakery, the doctor, the barber–he gets a dinosaur as a reward. Mom is terrified and the boy is thrilled. The story gets more complicated as he brings his new pets home. At first they are unintentionally destructive, but then mom sees a more useful tact as she deploys them to “cut” the grass and clean the gutters. With lots of opportunity to predict, and infer, this story builds language concepts. My little client often becomes less attentive about half way through the story, but his typical peer kept answering my questions and helped keep him engaged. He seemed to catch her enthusiasm and want to take his turn in talking about the story.
It is well known that providing typical peers for play with children on the autism spectrum is helpful as they learn from models of appropriate play. Good programs for ASD children provide for “reverse mainstreaming” where typical peers enjoy the same classroom and activities for a good portion of the kids’ day. Language models are especially helpful.
I have seen the benefits of inviting a typical peer to a speech session with a child on the autism spectrum. I see a higher level of language, play, and attention when a peer is included. Last week, a little girl from preschool joined our session with a 5 year-old boy. We start out on the swing set when the weather allows. One of our activities has been dubbed “The Opposite Game” by the little boy with whom I work. I started out calling out “What is the opposite of tall? wet? fast? girl? etc” as he names the opposite. Then I pick one of the opposites and we “brainstorm” more words in that category, using the great outdoors for some of our answers. “What is the opposite of same?” “Different.” Tell me some things that are the same.” So we alternate giving answers from the backyard picture in front of us. “Those bushes are the same,” as he nods to the row of shrubs that are identical. “The chimneys are the same,” says the little girl. “The steps are the same,” and on we go. I get a lot more responses out of my little client as he is egged on by his typical peer.
Next, he went through his dialogue from Toy Story, ending with “Blast off, to Infinity and Beyond!!” So, I said, where can we blast off to? He said, “The beach.” She added, “To fairyland.” He said, “To a museum, Florida, the pool, and so on.”
I congratulated them at being so good at brainstorming. They seemed proud to be associated with such a big word! Really we were thinking abstractly, naming things by category that involved some higher level concepts.
I told mom, this little girl can come back to play with us any day!
Last week I was in a collaborative meeting regarding a 5 year-old boy I work with on the autism spectrum. We discussed what play topics were hot among his typical peers so we could introduce them in a way that he would find interesting and therefore be an engaging play partner with his peers.
Since many little boys and girls talk about and act out scenarios or pretend to be characters seen on TV, we got on the topic of what TV shows were popular with boys his age. His mom said he had started to outgrow Diego and had started watching Looney Tunes. She asked for other ideas for shows that would be creative but not silly for her 5 year-old to watch. I wanted to know what you, my readers, might suggest?? What interests your boys at that age?
When parents and therapists model conversation in pretend play, kids start to imitate them and learn to take turns in conversation with their little toy pets or people.
Caroline’s mom had asked me what things she could be doing with 2 year-old Caroline to build language during play time. I told her to take a toy figure and and talk to the figure that Caroline was holding to model a conversation. Caroline has learned the art of conversing. I gave her some cute dog characters, called Randy Candy and Coco Coconut from PetCakes, stuffed dogs with a cupcake home and frosting tops. Caroline immediately took to the characters, grabbed one, gave me the other and commanded, “Talk!” She wanted me to start the conversation. My dog, Randy, said, “Hi,” and hers responded. Then she said, “You have a cherry on top,” which indeed he did on the top of his frosted head. I asked Coco what she would 
like to do and she said, “Eat a tea party,” so we proceeded to the little doll table where Caroline offered sprinkle cookies.
Kids learn to take turns conversationally but also expand the story telling as they request and comment to their pretend friends, whether they are a stuffed animal or Fisher Price little people character. When your child is carrying a favorite dinosaur, snake or Barbie, start up a conversation with the friend and see how your child responds. At first, you might need to model both sides of the conversation to give them the idea of how it works.
The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of the author. “Petcakes” were provided for review by Well Made Toy Manufacturing Corporation.”
One of the challenges of working with children on the autism spectrum is to model, encourage and teach flexible play. Children with ASD tend to get “stuck” on a topic, toy or animal so they want to continuously play with that object or play out the same scenario. Since I work with several preschool boys, I want to introduce topics that typically developing boys are interested in so my little clients can be appropriate play partners.
What boys aren’t fascinated with dinosaurs? One little boy I work with is very interested in marine animals, particularly sharks and seals. In order to move him to new topics, I started out playing with him on the playground as we acted out marine animals of his choosing. Then I told him we were going to be dinosaurs. I got out my little books that briefly described different dinosaurs and asked him to pick which one he wanted to be. Then I had him select one for me. WE read a few facts about each on so we could act out their life. I was to be the stegosaurus with the bony plates up my back and the spike on my tail. He was a T Rex, the large meat eater who I would have to watch my distance with since I was a plant eater. Our other play partner was a Triceratops with his “frill” which got caught on the beam above the slide when he was at the top, ready to come down. I was wielding my spiky tail if anyone came near me.
These little books offered just enough information to fill in our pretend play scenario and add some relevant information for this little boy to play with his peers. The next day we read about some other dinosaurs and added a new one to our group.
To round out the dinosaur theme, we read, I Wish I Had a Dinosaur by Anggabratra and When Dinosaurs Came with Everything by Lise Broach.
Now that temperatures in the northeast have gone from the 50′s to the 70′s in one week, it is time to take speech therapy outside–spring is here!
This week I commented to a mom that it was so sunny on her front steps. She asked if I would like to work with James outside. Sure. We read our books, played with our props and then he took off playing hide and seek with his crocodile, asking me to count with my turtle. (We are working on pragmatic language skills through play). After hide and seek, I suggested we take our animals on a trip. We looked for a fitting airplane among the sticks and yard debris and came up with a hollowed out branch. I couldn’t have done better at the toy store. I asked him where he was going and he replied that he was going south. We chose Florida. We flew into the back yard, planning our trip as we approached his swing set. A bit ditracted, he set down “the plane” and started to swing. I said, “Wait a minute, what about the animals?” He cleverly referred to where he had ditched the animals and replied, “That’s their swinging place!”
The outdoors is a great backdrop for pretend play. Leaves can become boats, sticks can become airplanes and grass can be seaweed if you are in the ocean. Take advantage of props from outside and bring them into the therapy room if you can’t take your students outside. Fortunately, I deliver services at the child’s home, so I can utilize the great outdoors.
How do you use the outside as a backdrop for therapy? Let me know through the comments below.
Tomorrow, April 2, is World Autism Awarenness Day! Autism affects 1 in 110 children and 1 in 70 boys. Celebrate the day by learning more about autism and its signs on Autism Speaks, or contribute to current research funds by participating in the many community activities to raise awareness.
If you are out tonight and notice your city lit up blue, that is part of the Autism Speaks’ “Light it Up Blue” campaign on the eve of World Autism Awareness Day. According to their website, “participating buildings include: The Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange and Radio City Music Hall in New York,; the new Meadowlands football stadium in New Jersey; Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago; the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia; Toronto’s iconic CN tower; Kingdom Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and the Bell Tower in Perth, Australia.” That is pretty impressive!
