Uncategorized – Page 10 – In Spontaneous Speech

Poppa’s Pizza Game Adaptation

28 Jul

July 28, 2014 Cindy 0

I have some of my therapy games home for the summer since I had grandchildren visiting. I noticed that I missed putting this one up on the blog. Poppa’s Pizza Topple is a game I found at a garage sale a few years ago and I think it is still being sold in a few stores. It is a game my students enjoy no matter what their ability level. Pizza seems to be a favorite food of most children. I have used this game with students who are working on basic communication skills such as turn taking and making requests. It can easily be adapted for students with limited verbal abilities by adding a communication board. It also works well as a simple reinforcement for doing therapy tasks. At the most simple level, just use the pizza crust and have the student request ingredients and place them on the crust. At the most difficult level, students place the ingredients on an unsteady pizza crust propped up on Poppa’s finger. They pick up the ingredients according to what is rolled on the dice. I recommend picking this game up and adding it to your collection if you get the chance.

I had a request to show the communication board. I do not have Boardmaker available on my home computer to open this board. I ended up taking a picture of it. It will give you an idea of the symbols used.

Grand Opening

24 Jul

July 24, 2014 Cindy 0

We did it. Hopefully you have found yourself at the new web site. You may be finding yourself here because of a redirect from the old site. Please change any book marks you have to reflect the new url address. Subscribers have been transferred over so you should not have to subscribe again. There may still be a few glitches but I think you will find most of the material that was on the old site has been transferred here. Let me know if you can’t find something. There may still be some glitches but I think we are fully operational. I hope you find this site easier to navigate and enjoy not having the ads pop up. Thanks for being patient while we made the changes.

The Art of Having a Conversation

25 May

May 25, 2014 Cindy 0

Students are sometimes referred to Child Study Team (CST) because of difficulties relating to peers. Concerns revolve around the student saying inappropriate things, being picked on and starting fights on the playground. When you talk to the student, you may find they have limited interests and talk excessively on one topic. They have difficulties taking turns during a conversation. In their attempts to enter a conversation they say something that can be perceived as an insult or bragging. This results in a fight or peers not wanting to interact with them. The student then feels picked on or shunned.

Sometimes these students have a diagnosis of Aspergers or high functioning autism and are on our caseloads. They may need direct instruction on how to have a conversation. Learning the art of having a conversation can help alleviate some of the difficulties. However, it is a very difficult skill to teach without structure. Left to their own devices, the a session may go something like this. A student will start a topic of high interest to them. The other students interrupt to make off topic comments. One student dominates the topic with multiple comments until another student manages to derail to another topic with multiple comments. It becomes a competition to control the topic rather than enjoy an exchange of information. No one feels they have been listened to and arguments occur as they interrupt each other. Each student feels that only their topic and comments are right. I have actually had a student say they won because they had the most papers out.

How do we provide structure so it becomes a learning task? It is important to break down skills in in smaller increments so they can understand and practice. I have used colored paper shapes as visual cues to illustrate turn taking, topic changes and questions and comments.

Can you guess which conversation is interactive with multiple people talking about a topic. Which conversation is more likely people talking for themselves?

During this process I have discovered many of our students do not know how to start a conversation or recognize when another student is giving them an opening to start a conversation. They may not see the differences between a question and a comment and do not understand the hidden expectations of both. When a comment is said, they may misinterpret its intent and not respond appropriately. I made comment and reply cards so that my students could work on this directly. There is a full set at the TPT store. You can reach them directly by hitting the button at the top of the page or the button below.

There is also a set of trial cards here.

The Value of Playing Cards

20 Jul

July 20, 2013 Cindy 0

playing cards

Before we had smart phones and iPods many of us remember playing cards when waiting any length of time with a group. Sometimes it is good to look at the old traditional card games because there is a reason why they had staying power. Children still like playing them. Card games such as Go Fish, Rummy, Old Maid, Crazy 8 and UNO can meet a lot of different therapy needs as well as provide a recreational activity for disabled students to mix with non disabled students. You may remember we used a game of UNO in our “Circle of Friends Group” to work with a student who performed on academic grade level but was severely impacted socially by Autism. http://cjmonty.wordpress.com/category/circle-of-friends/.

Card games have the advantage of engaging a number of students of different ability levels within a structure. They provide lots of opportunity for modeling by peers in predictable interactions. The use of card games provides a training ground to reinforce social skills some students need to develop in order to participate in a group and have a conversation. It also allows the peer group to interact with a disable student and see them as a person they can develop a friendship and play with.

Our high needs students benefit from some preparation such as communication boards, video modeling and visual cue cards. Many of my students I work with in the Life skills Programs are working on skills such as maintaining focus with a group, staying on topic, realizing their turn, the turn of others, perspectives of others, and appropriate emotional control with unexpected events. In addition, they may be working on vocabulary and following directions.

I have collected free downloads of some traditional card games. I hope this will make it easier for some of your planning for next school year. Some of these have the advantage of using specific themed vocabulary.

UNO

There are some creative variations on the internet. However this particular game is under copyright so I didn’t feel I could post them. The regular game is very useful for working on following directions.

This is a board that is a tech speak overlay but I just use the board without the device for my less verbal students. http://www.boardmakershare.com/Activities/Search?SearchText=uno

Old Maid

I have used cards that come in pairs such as opposite cards, and plurals. Just add a blank card that does not match with the others for the old maid.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Opposite-Sort-Freebie-702983

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Ocean-Plurals-Freebie-670212

I Have, Who Has

This is a fairly recent card game that seems to have a lot of potential for small groups. Students need to maintain focus to stay with the group and participate.

Animals created by Ashley Hughes

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Have-Who-Has-Animals-197698

Food by Ashley Hughes

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Have-Who-Has-Food-30-Cards-198322

Winter vocabulary by Kindergarten Squared

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Have-Who-Has-Winter-Vocabulary-Freebie-460163

Synonyms by Dee Bibb

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-haveWho-hasSynonyms-587727

Halloween Vocabulary by Mandy Neal

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-HaveWho-HasHalloween-360098

Back to School Vocabulary by Simply Speech

http://kcummingsslp.blogspot.com/2012/07/back-2-school-i-have-who-has-freebie.html