In Spontaneous Speech

It is the Little Things That Count

22 May

May 22, 2015 Cindy 0

Many parts of the country have had their last days of school but we are still finishing up the last couple of weeks of our year. It is easy to feel defeated and wonder if the whole thing is just one big paper using, report making, operation. It is times like these that it is important to remember the things that made you smile through out the year. Some the following gave me a smile.

dog eating homework

The task cards I make for TPT are usually made for specific student goals. Some of my students have attention deficit disorders and I am always trying to find creative ways to keep their attention. I remembered when I was a child that my name never seemed to be in any stories. I thought that some of my students may feel the same way so I decided to use the names from one of my classes on the task cards. One of the boys saw his name and was thrilled. He had to take the card and show his teacher. They were also thrilled to find their teacher’s name. Such a simple thing to keep them enthused about task cards. It is one advantage to making your own materials.

My students with Downs and Autism make me smile a lot. They continue to show me the value of play and that a toy’s worth is determined best by it’s ability to spin. Tops can spin almost anywhere for preposition development. A box of happy meal toys is priceless for cause and effect. Do not decide the value of a toy by its cost. Free is sometimes the best.

Good Will was a gold mine this year. After a year of searching I almost fell over when I discovered a Cariboo game for $5.00. It was only missing the key which I replaced with a golf tee. My husband couldn’t quite figure out why I acted like it was Christmas. It is truly a great game for speech therapy so don’t give up on the search. When you least expect it the game shows up.

I have had an iPad with some game apps available for reinforcement. When given a choice my students were choosing a game off my shelf rather than the iPad. I have to smile when technology doesn’t always win over the old fashion games. I find this encouraging because I feel board games are still better when it comes to developing social communication. I know that many therapist are implementing 5 minute individual speech drill sessions and are foregoing the games. However, I have only a few students who see me only for articulation. They usually have a mix of language, articulation and social skill deficits. The games play an important part in therapy and give me a better idea of their skills then drill.

lessonplan dartboard

You may notice I have been playing around with the design of my Blog. I am not sure if I will ever be truly satisfied. It is something else that keeps me entertained. I fixed a few links lately that were not working. Sometimes updates throw things off. Please make a comment if you can’t get to something.

Free Sample; Unexpected and Expected Behavior Task Cards

29 Apr

April 29, 2015 Cindy 0

I use Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking® curriculum with many of my students. One of the concepts that is explored in this curriculum is “I have thoughts about you and you have thoughts about me.” In other words, people are always thinking about each other and they may have comfortable or uncomfortable thoughts depending on their actions. This may affect how they treat individuals in the future. People want to be with people they are comfortable with and have good thoughts about. They may avoid those that don’t make them feel comfortable. Therefore being able to tell the difference between what is expected behavior in given situations and what is unexpected can help us when making and keeping our friends. You can find more information on her concepts at http://www.socialthinking.com/

I needed a good set of task cards to review actions that students may do or observe others do. You may find them useful if you are teaching from this curriculum. They are double sided with an unexpected behavior on one side and a matching expected behavior on the other side.

I put the cards in a draw bag. The students reached in and drew a card out, and placed it on the table. They then decided if the side facing up was an expected behavior or unexpected. They talked about how the actions make them feel. If the unexpected is presented first, students can talk about what they think the expected behavior would be on the other side.

Students checked their answers by using the Top Secret UV light which I got at our book fair. I put a U or and E in the box for them to check. There is also a QR code for those who would prefer to use a scanner. My students find this motivating and they can self check if they are working in small table groups.

The draw bag is an easy thing to make. I took a sleeve off an old sweater and sewed across the bottom. The cuff makes a nice finished opening and the bag is stretchy. It has got to be the easiest bag I have ever made.

In my TPT packet, there are 28 expected cards and 28 matching unexpected cards side by side. They are meant to be printed on card stock, cut on the horizontal lines and folded back to make a double sided card. I put a box on each card so I could write with my UV light pen a U or E in the box. Students can light the answer up. I also put a QR code for those who like that option. The QR code is from http://www.qrstuff.com/. When scanned it will read expected or unexpected to correspond to the side it is on.

I am putting 2 pages of the cards below for you to review as a freebie. If you like them consider getting the full set at TPT. Just click on the cover page button at the top for a direct link to the product. Your patronage covers the cost of this website and keeps it advertisement free, except for me I suppose. I am trying to keep the commercial aspect down and provide resources. I know most of us are on really tight budgets.

Pool Noodle Fun for Speech Therapy

23 Apr

April 23, 2015 Cindy 0

It is always hard this time of the year to find activities for group therapy with my Life Skills groups. There are usually 5 students in each group and the abilities are really varied. I try to include some motor activity because this keeps their attention. Using objects for actions is more meaningful for them then paper tasks. However there are a few students who have motor difficulties which makes it difficult for them to do some tasks and work with the group.

My inspiration often comes from my closet. This is a picture of what I found. I decided to make a badminton type activity. They used the pool noodles to hit balloons through the hulu hoop and then over the jump rope stretched across two chairs. We encouraged two students to hit it back and forth to complete turn taking. I reinforced the prepositions of over, through, below, under, and above. My early language learners practiced phrases such as “Give it to me”, “Hit it”, “I want it”.

One of my students kept saying “there it is”. He was a student who we usually had trouble engaging and he blossomed with this activity. For a student with Downs he had amazing eye hand coordination. I hope he does badminton for Special Olympics.

I liked the pool noodles because they didn’t hurt if students hit each other and the balloons slowed down the process enough that all the students were able to hit them. I recommend having spare balloons. We had one student who couldn’t resist squeezing and popping them.

Butterfly Paper Folding / Bulletin Board

7 Apr

April 7, 2015 Cindy 0

It is Spring here in the Northwest. Many of the classes use butterflies for instruction on the cycle of life. They watch caterpillars form cocoons and develop into butterflies. I found directions for folding paper butterflies on Pinterest. They made a good activity for my bulletin board and a direction following activity. It also helped to reinforce what was happening in classrooms. Here is a picture of the bulletin board.

The directions were fairly simple and could be completed within a 20 minute time frame. I added pipe cleaner antennae. The students just bent a pipe cleaner in half and wrapped the ends around their fingers a couple of times. They then stapled it to the top.

These directions really reinforced the concept of half. We also talked about parts of a butterfly. I was surprised to find my students didn’t know what antennae were.

I couldn’t make better directions then what were already posted here. There are easy to follow directions on goorigami.com. I just put them up on my iPad.

Whirly Therapy Fun

1 Apr

April 1, 2015 Cindy 0

I am not sure what they are called, but as a child I called it a Whirly. They were a great find this last weekend in the Easter basket toys at Walmart. It would be a good time to look for them. I was trying to find new mechanical toys for my early language learners who get engaged by anything that spins and pops. For $2 you couldn’t go too wrong. I did wonder how long it would last but it was sturdy enough to make it through a morning of therapy with the younger K through -2nd grade Life skills class. There is a precaution for aiming it at people and there is the string to watch out for.

I used it this week and it was a big hit. It was great for learning communication intents and making requests. It gave opportunities to review the concepts of around and over. If the string was pulled strong enough the spinner would stay on the ceiling a few minutes spinning over our heads. The students would give me the Whirly and make requests for fast pulls. We also practiced a few more prepositions when finding the location of that spinner after it came down. A few of my students needed a person to hold the device while they pulled the string. This encouraged joint attention to a task. I like it when a toy can offer so much opportunity for natural communication with very little effort.

Here is the communication board I used for the activity.