Supercharging Speech Therapy with Sensory Bins: Boosting Communication Skills and Beyond
Get ready to supercharge your speech therapy toolkit with the power of sensory bins! In this blog post, we're diving into the incredible world of sensory bins and how they can solve the age-old problem of finding engaging, functional activities to target speech sounds, motor speech movements, phonological processing disorders, expressive and receptive language goals, social communication and play skills.
Are you ever stuck wondering how to make your therapy sessions more engaging and effective?
Lemonade Sensory Bin filled with play-do, plastic cups, spoons, limes, and lemons (plastic ice fruit shapes) and fruit coasters (all from the Dollar Store)
Get ready to supercharge your speech therapy toolkit with the power of sensory bins! In this blog post, we're diving into the incredible world of sensory bins and how they can solve the age-old problem of finding engaging, functional activities to target speech sounds, motor speech movements, phonological processing disorders, expressive and receptive language goals, social communication and play skills.
It does take initial work in the beginning adding items to the bins, but after you can pull them out year after year with no prep.
WHAT IS A SENSORY BIN?
It is a container filled with a variety of fillers like beads, sand, water, rocks, dried pasta, dried corn. Within these bins you can add small toys, spoons, cups, little people, storybook props, tongs, and scoopers. You can fill your sensory bin according to themes like dinosaurs or sharks. I like to use plastic containers with lids so I can store my bins year after year.
Gardening Sensory Bin filled with green dyed pasta for grass, plastic flowers, flower pots and carrots, scoopers and herb markers.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SENSORY BINS?
Enhanced Sensory Stimulation: Children with sensory processing deficits often struggle with communication due to sensory challenges. Sensory bins provide the extra stimulation needed to activate their senses, kickstarting the brain and central nervous system for optimal communication development.
Memory Activation: Our senses are memory superheroes! When we engage multiple senses during therapy, we unlock more opportunities for memory activation and retention. Sensory bins create memorable experiences that help children recall and apply speech and language skills long after the session ends.
Joint Attention and Social Interaction: Building connections goes hand in hand with building relationships. Sensory bins foster joint attention, turn-taking, and social interaction as children explore and play together. They're not just mastering language, but also honing crucial social communication skills during play.
Building Brain Connections: Research confirms that sensory play, including sensory bins, builds strong connections in the brain's pathways. These connections enable children to tackle complex learning tasks, opening the door to remarkable progress in speech and language development.
Descriptive Vocabulary Expansion: Step into the sensory bin wonderland, and watch descriptive vocabulary flourish! As children immerse themselves in the sensory experience, they explore colors, shapes, textures, and sizes, expanding their expressive language skills and painting vivid pictures with their words.
WHAT GOALS CAN I TARGET?
Articulation and Apraxia: Say goodbye to dull articulation drills! With sensory bins, we can transform speech practice into a thrilling treasure hunt. Imagine burying small objects or pictures with target sounds and having your little ones search for them while practicing their speech. Use a child’s one, two or three target words over and over forming those motor neural brain pathways for tons of trials for kids with apraxia. It's interactive, engaging, and super effective in improving speech intelligibility and motor planning.
Phonological Processing Disorders: Sensory bins provide a multisensory approach that works wonders for children with phonological processing disorders. Sorting objects based on initial sounds or creating new words by manipulating objects with target phonemes takes learning to a whole new level. The tactile experiences and hands-on exploration boost sound discrimination and syllable awareness, helping children conquer phonological challenges.
Expressive and Receptive Language Goals: Sensory bins are a goldmine for expressive and receptive language development. Whether it's using prepositions, expanding sentences, or describing objects with vivid descriptors, sensory bins provide the perfect backdrop for language growth. The best part? Joint attention and social interaction come naturally as children engage their senses, fostering communication skills while having a blast.
HOW CAN I USE THEM?:
Have the child find small objects or pictures that contain their target speech sounds and use them in sentences or short stories.
Encourage the child to bury small objects in the sensory bin and practice saying target words or sentences while retrieving them.
Use objects with different textures, shapes, or sizes in the sensory bin and ask the child to imitate specific motor movements, such as sliding, twisting, or pushing, while describing their actions aloud.
Introduce objects with different initial or final sounds and ask the child to sort them into corresponding containers.
Use objects with target phonemes and have the child manipulate and combine them to create new words or syllables.
Incorporate prepositions by placing objects in different locations within the sensory bin and asking the child to describe their position (i.e.., "The lemon is under the cup").
Use action verbs related to the sensory bin materials and encourage the child to act them out or create sentences using the verbs (e.g., "The dinosaur is roaring," "I am pouring sand into the bucket").
Expand sentence length and complexity by encouraging the child to describe the objects using descriptors (e.g., colors, sizes, textures) or by combining multiple sentences into a cohesive narrative.
Use them with paired books and props and have children retell the story with the props in the sensory bin.
Sensory bins provide a versatile and engaging platform for targeting a wide range of speech and language goals in children. By harnessing the power of tactile experiences, therapists, teachers and parents can create a multisensory environment that promotes articulation, motor speech movements, phonological processing skills, as well as expressive and receptive language development.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to sensory bins. Let your creativity shine, and watch your therapy sessions transform into captivating adventures that leave a lasting
Preposition and Spatial Concept Acquisition
Preposition and spatial concept acquisition for preschoolers
“Hey Addie, please put your shoes in your cubby”, “Wyatt, stand in front of Cooper”, “Eliza throw the ball up in the air!” These are some real life examples of the functional need for children to understand spatial concepts.
Working with young children, I find that the understanding and use of prepositions is incredibly important for daily life as a child (and the research backs me up!). Prepositions include words like “on, up, under,and behind” are critical in making requests, following directions and locating objects.
I target prepositions daily in my work with pediatric children with speech and language differences. A fundamental skill is being able to tell someone where an object is and being able to find an object when someone describes where it is- like “Mom, your keys are in the fridge”, and “Addie, your cup is under the table”.
Here is a chart that may be helpful for the acquisition of spatial concepts by age. Keep in mind that all children develop at different rates and these are estimates based on a compilation of research literature. Click on the chart to get your own copy.
When Teaching Spatial Concepts or Prepositions the literature makes two important points to keep in mind:
1) Children should be hearing prepositions in many different contexts. “Target words said by a clinician in a variety of syntactic and situational contexts (i.e. with different objects) were more often acquired by the two-year-old late-talking children..” (Alt et al, 2014). Meaning the more kids hear prepositions in different ways, the more likely they are to acquire them.
Example: If a child is learning the location “under”, they hear the word under as they are crawling under the table, “Hey, Jake, you are going under the table”. Later the child hears the word “under’ again, “Your cup is under your blanket”.A third time that day they hear, “My keys fell under my seat” and so on. The objects are changing but the preposition is staying the same.
2) The second point is that it is important to vary those contexts where the prepositions are presented. Those concepts should be presented in different places; at home, at the playground and the grocery store.
Example: If a child is working on the preposition “out”, The adult would say, “let’s go out the door”, then later in a different location, “Take the apple out of the cart” at the grocery store and later, “pull the piece out of the puzzle” when playing at home.
How to Teach Spatial Concepts
Start simple and with objects that interest the child. If you are working on the concept “off” and your objects are a cup and a small pig, place the pig on top of the overturned cup and push the pig off and say “off”. Repeat this allowing the child to push the pig off several times.
Each time you or the child pushes the pig off you say “off”. Pause after at least five times to wait to see if the child says “off”.
Later use the same word, “off” with different objects and repeat the activity.
Ask the child to push the pig off and celebrate when they do.
This simple activity will allow the child to initially learn the concepts you are targeting.
After you have used the guidelines above, the fun part is helping children understand and use spatial concepts in play!
HOW DO WE TEACH SPATIAL CONCEPTS ?
Here are some functional and fun ways to help a child learn spatial concepts:
“Hide” some plastic eggs around the room (allow the child to watch you hide them) and ask the child to find the eggs in different target locations “Find the egg under the table”, “Look under the chair”, “Maybe under the blanket”.
Allow the child to “hide” them and tell you where to find them.
Place sticky notes in target locations in a book (ie. “on top of the dinosaur's head”, “on top of the car”, “on top of his shoe”.)
Use a playhouse to target prepositions “on top of the roof”, “Under the bathroom”, “next to the tree” and move people in the target areas.
Using play dough to target “between”. “Put the blue ball between the 2 yellow balls”.
Use a train track set to target “in front and in back”. “Put the engine in front of the red train”
Fill a bin with water and have items that float “on top” or stay “on the bottom”.
Incorporating motor skills is a great way to engage children in learning spatial concepts. Make a blanket fort or use a chair and ask them to move to different areas, “Hide under the fort”, “Stand behind the chair”, “crawl between your friends”.
Digital Work with Prepositions (click the picture for a preview)
Alt M, Meyers C, Oglivie T, Nicholas K, Arizmendi G (2014) Cross-situational statistically based word learning intervention for late-talking toddlers. Journal of Communication Disorders 52: 207–20.
Hicks, S., Rivera, C., & Wood, C. (2015). Using Direct Instruction: Teaching Preposition Use to Students With Intellectual Disability. Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch, 46, 194-206.
Katrina Nicholasu, Mary Alt, and Ella Hauwille (2019). Variability of input in preposition learning by preschoolers with developmental language disorder and typically-developing language.
Add a Word Strategy for Language Development
Add a Word : Strategy to improve language development in early language learners. A blog post highlighting one strategy for parents and speech language pathologists to use to promote language and words in preschool children.
Description:
If a child is using one word to comment, request, negate, label, describe, answer or ask for more; add a word to their vocalization. If a child is using 2 words together, expand it to make a 3 word sentence and so on. The child does not need to imitate, simply hear the expansion. This will expand their sentences and the function of their communication and their vocabulary skills. Click here for the Full Resource of Speech and Language Strategies for Early Childhood.
Examples:
1) If a child is saying "bye-bye" to someone or something, you say, "bye-bye kitty" and if a child says "bye-bye Kitty, you say, "Bye-bye big kitty". Add a word to what the child says.
2) If a child asks for "more", expand their vocalization by saying "more milk", if they say "more milk", you could say, "more milk me".
3) If a child makes a comment on a picture or something happening in their environment by saying "plane", you say, "see plane" or expand to three words by saying, "see plane fly".
4)Introduce a new word each day and encourage children to use it throughout the day. This can help them build their vocabulary and learn new words in a fun and interactive way. You can also incorporate this strategy into daily routines such as snack time or bedtime.
Wait and Pause Strategy to Support Language Development
Strategy to support language development: Wait and Pause and give the child time to respond during play activities. When you ask a question, make a comment or give directions, wait and pause for the response. Make sure to also pause after your child speaks.
During play, as you are talking, pause where there is a word you want the child to say.
Description:
Pause and give the child time to respond during play activities. When you ask a question, make a comment or give directions, wait and pause for the response. Make sure to also pause after your child speaks.
During play, as you are talking, pause where there is a word you want the child to say.
Click here for the Full Resource of Speech and Language Strategies for Early Childhood
Examples:
1) Build a block tower: As you place each block on top say "block on" at least 3 times, on the fourth time say "block" and pause for the child to fill in the word "on", wait 3-5 seconds and say the word if the child does not. Continue each time you place a block on.
2)Hide some toys around the room, and have your child cover their eyes. Repeat phrases such as, "Where is it?" or "Where are you?" as the child is looking for the toys. Repeat the phrases several time and pause after at least 5 trials and shrug your shoulders and pause to see of the child will say "where". Continue to repeat the activity.
3) As you are reading a book point to the same item on each page of a book and say or sign the word (i.e. car). After at least 3-5 trials, point to the car and pause for the child to say or sign the word.
Valentine Speech and Language Activities
Valentine’s Day is coming up next week but these early intervention and preschool speech and language activities can be used any time!
Preschool books for February
I often use inspiration from books that I have and Love, Friendship, Celebrations and Valentine’s Day are themes that I have plenty of books for! Even if you don’t have the books personally, make sure to visit your local library or get on YouTube for tons of read-aloud books.
Some books that I love this time of year are shown in this video (posted on my Instagram)….
One of the books that I use each February is “The Day it Rained Hearts” by Felicia Bond (link to YouTube Read aloud here).
With this story and the other Valentine Books I use some engaging language activities with my speech and language students.
1) CREATE A VALENTINE SENSORY BIN: Targets can include core words and phrases like “find the ____, I found it, Where is ____, see ____” and expanding vocabulary by matching pictures in the book to pictures that they find. Kids love to put the treasures into the plastic containers and we work on phrases, “in the heart” and “in the box”. Pictures can be added to sensory bins that target specific speech sounds that the child is working on as well,
I use a plastic container and fill it with like colors. I add pictures of items throughout the books that we read. I added plastic heart containers, sparkly hearts, gems, colored balls, cut up silver straws, red yarn, felt cup cakes and pom poms to this bin (I got everything at the Dollar Store). As we read the story, kids take out the pictures with plastic tongs (also working on those fine motor skills).
2) HIDE AND FIND VALENTINE LETTER ACTIVITIES: This one is easy prep for you and kids love to see what is inside the envelopes. I put either valentines inside envelopes or some felt hearts and I add the amount of hearts on the outside of the envelope to work on some counting skills also. You could also add Valentines with your child’s targets in them (i.e. if a child is working on the velar /k/, add valentines with cats inside the envelopes).
I hide the envelopes around the room and the children find them, open them up and talk about where there envelope was (working on prepositions and location) and describe what is inside the envelope (working on descriptors).
Simply fill envelopes with hearts or commercial valentines and add the same amount of hearts to the outside of the envelope with corresponding number. Hide them around the room and have the children find them.
3) DROP ITEMS INTO A TUNNEL: I happened to get a Valentine Cat Tunnel at my local Aldi’s last week for my sister’s new puppy (it was way to small, but perfect for a Valentine Drop!). We dropped articulation pictures down into the tunnel after the kids said them which was really motivating! I also used this activity with children with emerging expressive language targeting words like “in, down, go and uhoh” and phrases, “go down, see it, go heart”.
I also used it with a student with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) who was working on the /f/ sound plus a vowel and this activity facilitated her elongating the /f/ sound rather than stopping it before the vowel.
Use a tunnel turned upright to drop articulation cards, objects, and letters into.
Check out my Celebration book companions including “The Day it Rained Hearts” for activities and items to add to sensory bins!
Speech Therapy Tips for Minimally Verbal Preschoolers
How do I get my child to talk? What can I do at home to help my child communicate what they want and need? If my child isn’t talking, is there anything I can do?
These are some initial questions that I hear when I first see a minimally verbal child for a speech and language evaluation. Although it is important for intervention (speech therapy) to be tailored to the individual child, there are some intervention techniques that are helpful for all children.
How do I get my child to talk? What can I do at home to help my child communicate what they want and need? If my child isn’t talking, is there anything I can do?
These are some initial questions that I hear when I first see a minimally verbal child for a speech and language evaluation. Although it is important for intervention (speech therapy) to be tailored to the individual child, there are some intervention techniques that are helpful for all children. Some experts (Fish, 2016; Velleman, 2003) suggest intervention for young children include the following (modified from article by Megan Overby, PhD, CCC-SLP original article Sharon Gretz, M. Ed.):
Learning to imitate gross motor skills
Large motor movements (such as clapping, hands up to be picked up)
Actions with objects (banging two blocks together)
Imitating vocal play (i.e. raspberries, tongue clicks)
Imitating oral-facial movements (i.e.,puffing cheeks out, blowing kisses)
Vocalizing visible early sounds such as /m/, /b/, or /d/ (e.g., /mmmm/, “muh” or “buh”)
Vocalizing to get attention (e.g., “uh” and pointing to a cookie)
Sound effects: animal noises (e.g., “grr” for a tiger, vehicle sounds)
As children start using more of the above and begin to use more sounds imitatively and spontaneously, focus can include more functional vocalizations:
Words with distinctive pitch patterns (e.g., “uh-oh,” “wow,” “whee,” “yay”)
Words with strong emotional meaning (“no”, “up”)
Vocalizations that can be paired with actions (e.g., “whee” as a car goes down a track, “hi,” with a wave and “oops” when an object falls)
Sound effect words (e.g., “woof’, “beep,” etc.). There are great books that use sound effects (see Blog post, 13 Tips for Choosing Books for Preschoolers)
Verbal routines and singing (e.g., songs like “5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed,” favorite predictable books like “Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do you See”) : (see Blog post, 13 Tips for Choosing Books for Preschoolers)
Words with very early consonants and simple syllable shapes (e.g., “hi,” “me”, “mama”, “oh no”)
Some helpful speech therapy tips:
Use sounds already in the child’s repertoire to build simple productions (e.g., if a child has /p/, can they learn to say “pop” “up,” or an approximation of those words)
Hold toys or objects of interest near the speaker’s mouth to direct the child’s attention to mouth movements during imitation tasks.
Use movement during practice (push a car down a track to work on “wheee” or build a tower and place block on top and practice “up” then “uhoh” when they fall down.
Make it fun and incorporate play with stuffies or whatever the child is interested in to elicit speech and language (i.e. let your child see you “hiding” toys in the room and have them find them)
Books and music are extremely helpful to facilitate skills.
Keep in mind, once a child begins to use sounds, it is more important to expand their sound and syllable repertoire than to have them accurately produce the sounds ( that will come later!)
The more repetitions you can get the better! Using target vocalizations in play is not only fun for the child, but also encourages the most engagement and in turn increased repetitions.
The primary goals for children who are exhibiting minimal communication skills are (modified from Davis and Velleman, 2000):
Help the child establish a consistent form of communication. This could include sign language, pointing to pictures, using approximations of words, pointing to what a child wants, gestures and facial expressions (or a combination of these!). It is important that the child and the people in their environment agree what a gesture, sound, picture, or word approximation represents or means.
Using alternative communication such as sign language, gestures, or pictures can help move a child toward verbal communication by relieving frustration and establishing a consistent, reliable means of communication (Fish, 2016).
Once my child/student starts vocalizing, where do I go from there?
A hierarchy is suggested for working on production of syllable shapes for children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (modified from Fish, 2016 and Velleman, 2003) but can also be applied to minimally verbal children. I have include the initial steps in this hierarchy:
CV (Consonant plus a vowel) (“me”)
VC (vowel plus a consonant “up”)
Reduplicated CV.CV (“bye-bye” or “no-no”)
CV.CV with a vowel change (“mommy”, “nehnuh”)
Variegated CV.CV (“bunny”)
CVC (“pop”)
CVC with different consonants (“top”)
These are techniques and suggestions that speech language pathologists use in therapy and caregivers can use at home to elicit some speech and language skills. If you are concerned about your child’s speech and/or language development, it is recommended that you contact a speech-language pathologist through your local county or early intervention or preschool program to have a thorough communication evaluation to determine if speech therapy is required.
25 Engaging Articulation Card Activities
25 Engaging Articulation Card Activities
I want to share a free resource that I use daily with my kids who are working on articulation. Drill doesn't always cut it for my kids (or me). I want to make speech engaging and incorporate play so kids are motivated to work.
Below I have a list of my student’s favorite activities and the choice page that you can get for free on SPEECHIETRISH website (see Freebies section), then click and copy to use with your students!
I want to share a free resource that I use daily with my kids who are working on articulation. Drill doesn't always cut it for my kids or me. I want to make speech engaging and incorporate play so kids are motivated to work.
Below I have a list of my kids favorite activities and the choice page that you can get for free on here- just click on the picture to get your copy!
25 ACTIVITIES TO USE WITH ARTICULATION CARDS
Smash mats with play-dough: Smash a play dough ball for each target word
Blow a cotton ball with a straw to a target card
Dot Markers sheets for many trials: Make a dot on a picture after saying the target word
Swat the picture with a fly swatter, then say the target word
Throw a ball into a bin for each trial (I have used crumpled up paper for this!)
Hide the cards then have the child find them and say the word, and have the child hide the cards and say them when you find them (one of the kids favorites!)
Place mini objects on cards (mini objects are like gold to kids!)
Run to a card say the word and run back
Leap frog on top of cards
Use stepping stones and place cards underneath them- say the word for each step
Feed the animal or puppet a card (use cans, bins, boxes, detergent containers with faces and cut out mouths on top)
Hide a sticker under one card out of a number of cards- each card that is turned over, the child says the words “It was not under the ____” until they find the sticker card.
Fishing for cards (put a paper clip on each card, then make a fishing pole with a magnet)
Tablet games
Roll a die and say your target word that many times
Bean bag toss- throw the bean bag onto an array of the child’s cards and whichever one they hit with the bean bag they say. Can modify to make it bean bag tic tac toe for older kids.
Cover an articulation card with an index card and slowly move it. The child has to guess (and correctly articulate the word) before the picture is revealed
Bowling- use cups, or binder clips clipped onto figures and put the cup on top of articulation cards- the child rolls a ball to knock over the cups and says the words under the cups
Ball poppers- aim balls at articulation cards that are leaning against a wall or held up with binder clips- the child says the words that they knock over with the ball
Make a road with the cards and say the words that the vehicle stops on- so many modifications for this one!
Use a flashlight to shine the light on certain cards in a box or dark room- the child says the words that the light is shining on
Slime or sticky balls- the child throws the ball onto an arctic card and says that word
Sensory bin- hide cards in a sensory bin and the child says the words that they find
Magnet tiles or blocks- make boxes and place cards into boxes or on blocks as you pile them up then knock them down
Obstacle course- place cards in and around an obstacle course- as the child completes an obstacle , then say the word on the card.
13 Tips for Choosing Books for Preschoolers to Encourage Communication Skills
1) Creative engaging illustrations: pictures with bright colors and actions on the pages. Many times the simpler the illustrations, the more drawn the child is to examining the details of those simple pictures. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Snowy Day are great examples of classic children’s books with very simple illustrations. Although these books have colorful illustrations, the pictures are not too “busy” and allow children to focus on specific elements. The Pout Pout Fish, a book series by Deborah Diesen is another book that has engaging illustrations with detailed emotions in the sea creatures faces.
2) Select books that are relatively short and tell simple stories (or make a longer book short!). Because a book may have more text than a preschool child can sit for, doesn’t mean you need to read ALL the text. If a page maybe has 5 sentences, the adult can summarize the text for the child to keep their interest. A “picture walk” is a great way to preview a book or simply talk about what you and the child see in the pictures. The Three Pigs when read fully can be too long for some children, but can be easily shortened by the adult reading or summarizing the story but using repeated text throughout (“I will huff and puff” is an example of that repeated text).
3) Books that have limited or no text: Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd, Gravity by Jason Chin is about the advanced concept of gravity that can be simply understood. We talked about the word gravity and dropped items including the book. The kids had a blast! Carl’s Birthday by Alexandra Day is a series with limited text that contains pictures that tell the story of a dog’s birthday.
4) Books with Repetitive phrasing or pictures: Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do you Hear? And most books by Eric Carle have the quality of repetitive and memorable phrasing. Children really love this predictable text. 5 Little Monkeys and It’s Mine by Leo Lionni are also examples of books that contain repetitive scripts. Repetitive phrasing allows for practice of motor speech movements for children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech.
5) Rhyming, song or rhythm in the text is appealing to young children and invites them to join in with the story. Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson contains the repeated word “more” on each page. This can be used to teach specific sign language or vocabulary on augmentative and alternative communication devices. 5 Green and Speckled Frogs, and Dinosaurumpus by Toni Mitton also have captivating rhythms. Books where animals or people make certain sounds to imitate Moo, Baa, La La La are great for kids with limited verbal production.
6) Hidden pictures on pages entice a child’s curiosity. Dear Zoo is one of my favorites for this. Children open a flap to reveal a zoo animal that is not appropriate to take home. An easy way to make your own hidden picture book is to cover pictures with sticky notes. Children can make guesses as to what is underneath. Find the Duck and Find the Puppy by Felicity Brooks have pictures that children have to locate on each page. Hidden pictures are great for targeting answering “where” questions and preposition use (i.e “the duck is in the sink”).
7) Humorous books always encourage tons of language (think poop, body noises, silly things). Hey Bruce and other Mother Bruce Books by Ryan Higgins have children turning books upside down, wiggling and “pushing buttons” as part of the story. Duck In the Truck by Jez Alborough is a humorous story about a duck who gives his other animal friends some big problems.
8) Movable books/pages, tactile books and Books that Encourage Children’s Movement like Press Here by Herve Tullet where children follow directions to push, shake, and tilt the book to make things happen. Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia is another book where children can imitate the vehicle's movements and move their bodies in similar ways.
9) Books that are of high interest to the child are important to consider. Little Mouse, Big Hungry Bear and the Red Ripe Strawberry by Don Wood is fun for children who love Bears or How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen for kids who know all the dinosaur’s names. Sometimes books that are interesting to the child or character books that they have seen on videos or TV are great to explore with your child or student. If a book is motivating for the child, that book is valuable!
10) Award winning books (Caldecott or or other author/illustrator medals), and book by familiar children’s authors The Napping House by Audrey Wood, The GingerBread Baby by Jan Brett, The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle are all Caldecott Winners for good reason!
11) Books that mimic real life events All Better by Henning Lohein about getting “boo boos” and making them feel better. Thank You Mr. Panda by Steve Antony about a Panda giving presents to all of his friends who are not grateful.
12) If you can extend the theme of a story with more activities it expands vocabulary and learning! As an example, with the book Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni, you can measure items in the room, your arm, a banana! Extending a book’s lesson, language or theme is a perfect way to extend that language to “real life”.
13) Be sure to think about books that are appropriate for your child’s fine motor skills: (Board books, larger pages, thicker paper and tiny hand held books). Although Pop up books are fun, they are very tempting to grab and pull the pop ups for little hands!
Be sure to check out my Book Companion Bundle and other Book Companions in my TPT store for some props and activities to use with some of the above mentioned books!
10 Best Stocking Stuffers for Speech and Language Development
This list includes toys and items that are relatively low cost, small in size and perfect for eliciting speech and language development. I use all of these in my therapy sessions and have found their use extremely successful and highly motivating to my students. The more engaging an activity is, the more language it facilitates! Please check out my other BLOG POST about the Top 10 Toys for Speech and Language Development. I am linking all of the following on Amazon, but often you can find these at your local dollar store, pharmacy chain and even convenience stores!
***Keep in mind that many of these toys contain small parts and should be used with an adult next to the child. To elicit the best communication opportunities the adult should be playing with the toys alongside the child. As you play, be sure model your own language (i.e. “Let’s push the dough”, “uh-oh, the car fell!”) for the child to hear and perhaps imitate.
This list is my no means exhaustive and there are plenty more I could add- but these are some of my favorites that I use with my speech and language impaired students.
1) These gross SUCKING SLIME EMOJIS have been a huge hit for eliciting language for students with decreased verbal skills to students with more language. Targeted core words can include, “in, out, yuck, suck, squeeze, and push”. With gestalt language processors kids have developed new gestalts like, “thats disgusting”, “that didn’t work”, and “It’s not coming out”. They don’t last forever so buy a pack!
2) PAINTER’S TAPE: This seems like a strange gift, but it is hours of fun. To elicit language the adult is the holder of the tape. Children can work on requesting tape, asking for “short” or “long” pieces (great concepts), using prepositions (on, under, around). Kids can make roads for vehicles using the tape and capture items in the wall using the tape. With painters tape it wont peel your paint off!
3) WIND UP TOYS: Kids often require help winding these up which is a perfect opportunity to work on asking an adult or another child for “help”. Target core words can include “stop, go, fall, wind, up, and uh-oh”. Kids enjoy watching these toys fall off of ledges eliciting “uh-oh” or “ Oh no”. Speech sound targets can include /g/ for “go”, and /st/ blend for “stop”. Also you can name each toy with the target sound that the child is working on.3)
4) This PUTTY SNOWMAN is fantastic for working on body parts and children add body parts to the putty to form a snowman. Forming the putty into balls for the snowman works on fine motor strength and coordination for later developing pencil grasp. Language targets include “in, on, out push, stuck, and pull” . You can also pair this with real snow in a bowl and work on those same concepts plus “melt, cold, warm, water”.
5) PAINT WITH WATER BOOKS: I use these in my session when kids need a low key break from high energy activities. Kids can work on labeling or pointing to items on the pages and love to reveal the hidden objects after painting with the water pen. This activity also works on fine motor skills (paint brush grasp). Targeted language can inlcude, “look, I found it, where?, see____, there” and specific vocabulary depending on the theme of the book.
6) PULL BACK VEHICLES: Kids pull back these vehicles then let them go on their own- like magic. This is great for encouraging the following core words: “pull, back, go, stop” in addition to the names of the specific vehicles. Kids can make car tracks by putting books together for a road and watching cars fall “off” or “stay on” the road. Stand books on the edges to make tunnels for cars to go “under” and “through”. You can also target functions of each and describing each vehicle. There are endless concepts to work on with these vehicles.
7) Play-do: Good old dough! Play-do or homemade dough works well for those fine motor skills (strengthening hands and fingers and coordinating the muscles of the hand) in addition to heaping kids develop speech and language skills. Verbs that can be worked on are, “push, squeeze, smash, poke, roll, cut, pinch”. Speech sounds like /p/ for “push” and “pop” can be elicited for minimally verbal kids. Use cookie cutters, bread knives and other kitchen tools with the dough to simulate making cookies and baking.
8) BUBBLES: These are my go-to activity when kids are shy or reticent to participate in sessions. Bubbles usually can elicit participation and language quickly. Bubbles are great to work on early sound /p/ for “pop” and /b/ for “blow” and vowel-consonant combinations like “up”. It also elicits lip rounding while blowing which helps with straw use. I like these Fubbles containers because of the “no-spill” feature (I have spilled many a container of Bubbles before this was invented!)
9) STICKY CRAWLER BALLS: It’s seriously magic how these balls stick to walls and crawl down! Words that can be targeted are “throw, high, up, down, stick, fall, stuck, uh-oh”. The vowel-consonant combination “up” is perfect for working on with these! They also facilitate work on descriptors like feel, color and shape.
10) NESTING ZOO ANIMALS: My students really enjoy trying to figure out how to put these nesting dolls back together. It is a great opportunity to work on sizes (big, small, medium, bigger, smaller) and to work on the concepts “top” and “bottom”. Some core words that can be targeted are, “on, off, pull, same, different” and descriptions and differences can be elicited also.
Top 10 Recommended Toys for Speech and Language Development
As a speech language pathologist, I am often asked what toys or activities I recommend for speech and language development for speech or language impaired children ages 2-5. In my previous Blog Post I talked about toy selection. I wanted to provide you with some toys and links that I use in my therapy sessions and that I find work well in eliciting receptive and expressive language skills. The toys I have chosen for this list are open ended, play based and can target many goals at one time (including speech sound and language goals!)
Top 10 Recommended Toys for Speech and Language Development
As a speech language pathologist, I am often asked what toys or activities I recommend for speech and language development for speech or language impaired children ages 2-5. In my previous Blog Post I talked about toy selection. I wanted to provide you with some toys and links that I use in my therapy sessions and that I find work well in eliciting receptive and expressive language skills. The toys I have chosen for this list are open ended, play based and can target many goals at one time (including speech sound and language goals!)
Included in this list are some of my favorites (I could list 50 more!). You know your child best and as I said in my previous post you are your child’s BEST toy, and you know your child better than anyone. Consider your child’s interests and use their curiosity in specific toys and activities to steer your decisions.
(**Some of the toys contain small parts for 2 and 3 year olds and must be supervised by an adult).
ALL PICTURES ARE LINKED Soooo… Click on a picture to see more about the specific toy
(Please note that this post contains affiliate links and any purchase made through these links will award me a small commission -at absolutely no extra cost for you)!
1) Farm set
Farm Sets with animals and people are great to work on prepositions like “in, out, up, down” and verbs “eat, go, come, stop” in addition to animal labels and sounds. Children who are minimally verbal can often imitate animal sound and this provides them with a play based opportunity for that!
2)Blocks
Any type of block set provides an open ended learning and communication experience for your child. I really like these soft blocks to reduce noise and injury and kids love to put the round peg blocks through the holes encouraging verbs like “through, out, in, stuck”. With colored blocks you can also work on sorting, naming and pointing to colors, shapes and sizes. Some early core words and sounds to work on are “uhoh” when pushing a tower over or “up” or “on” each time you put a block on the tower. A great storage option is in old comforter bag or a pillowcase with a tie!
3) Play House with People and Props
Similar to the farm, a play house with people can target prepositions (in, on, out, up, down)and verbs (go, come, stop, pee pee, poop, eat, sleep….). With the different people you can also work on pronouns (he, she, they, him, her, them) and family members names (Daddy, Mama, Grandma, and proper nouns -the names of sister, brother, friends). A playhouse also lends itself to learning names of rooms and furniture in the home. There are tons of playhouses with people on the market!
4) Potato Heads
I like to find these at yard sales and online mom’s groups. I get collections of different potato head items all around (even the Dollar store and pharmacy stores have them). Try to get them with a case for storage or pick up a plastic container to store all the potato extras!
These are great for working on pronouns, body parts, family names, and sizes. To work on specific sounds, I name each potato with a sound that the child is working on (i.e working on the /k/ sound, I might name one of the potatoes “Ken” and the other “Kiki”). Kids also work on fine motor skills pushing the body parts into the holes on the potatoes.
5) Cars with Garages or Ramps
You can get cars and ramps pretty much anywhere there are toys. I like the above set for the variety of language it can elicit. Kids love to hide items inside of containers and this set works great for that in play. Originally intended to work on numbers, colors and sizes, you can also work on putting different color cars into the garages and work on “no”, “yes”, and “uhoh”. Take a book or box and make a ramp for cars to “go” “down” and “up” to work on those concepts. Stacking the garages on top of each other and “pushing” down is so fun for kids in addition to playing hide and seek with the cars and the boxes.
6) Play Food set or Baking Set
You can find play food sets all over the place. I like these sets particularly because they have velcro so the child can cut and put back together to work on those fine motor skills. Working on naming and pointing to foods kids love to make meals for adults. Some core words to work on are “cut, push, pull, make, on, off, open, close, out, in”. It’s fun to pair adult real cooking items in play (a big pot, wooden spoons, spatula) and real foods (potato, apple etc.) and make soup!
7) Baby Dolls and Accessories
You probably already have this toy (Baby with accessories), but I had to include it! It’s perfect to work on verbs “eat, poop, pee, sleep, drink, clean, change”, vocabulary like “stinky, help, see, bath, bottle, spoon…”, and body parts. This also encourages pretend play!
8) Ball poppers
This is a great stocking stuffer and there are all kinds of animals you can choose from for these ball poppers (The balls are quite small so this needs to be monitored by an adult). Simple words that can be worked on are “pop, push, squeeze, up, out, go, where…”. I often pair this toy with bubbles when working on the /p/ and /b/ sounds with minimally verbal kids.
9) Learning Resources Toys Picnic Basket, Surprise Party Presents, Rock and Gem Surprise
These Learning Resources toys and activities are so engaging for kids and target numerous goals through play. Here we are with the toy inside a container again- and kids LOVE it. My kids have really enjoyed cracking open the rocks to reveal the gems. Working on colors and shapes with all of these toys as well as prepositions, new vocabulary (foods, animals) and core words like “open, close, help, out, hide and find”. The language opportunities are endless!
10) Magnet Tiles
Magnet tiles are like blocks: open ended, tons of language opportunities and fun. This set is one of many that I found. I even saw some at Aldi’s grocery store this weekend. You will want at least 32 pieces for building. Kids can make anything from boxes to castles. I love to hide things inside the boxes. You can also use washable markers to write on the tiles and work on specific sounds. Shapes, colors and sizes can be targeted also. I recommend buying a plastic storage container to keep them all in one place!
11) Critter Clinic
Ok- I know I said Top 10 toys, but this one is a bonus! I picked mine up at a yard sale years ago! Different color keys open up different color doors and you can put anything you want the child to work on inside the doors. This toy is a favorite of speech pathologists because of the versatility of it. It is intended to be a vet clinic, but you can make it whatever your child is interested in (i.e. a school, a barn, a house, a town).Vocabulary that this can elicit includes “open, close, stuck, hide, in, and out”. You can put speech sound picture cards in the doors also to work on your child’s targeted sounds
Since I wanted to keep the list short, I won’t add anymore now (maybe in another post,
But…. I can’t make a list for the Top Recommended Toys for Speech and Language Development without mentioning these:
Books
Puzzles
Bubbles
Play do
Balls
Tunnel
Play kitchen
Pots, pans, spoons, cups, tongs
I will be doing another Blog post about some of these toys and activities also, so stay tuned and check into my Blog often!
Thanks for being here!
CONNECT THROUGH PLAY
SpeechieTrish
Visual Speech Sound Cues
Cueing in speech therapy can really make a huge difference in the speed of progression!
Cues in speech sound therapy (articulation, phonology and childhood apraxia of speech) are important to provide assistance with accurate speech sound production.
Cues can include:
1) Visual (pictures and hand cues)
2) Auditory (Verbal Model)
3) Tactile (touching)
I use all three of these cues together to optimize the time have in therapy with my students. I usually begin with visual speech sound cue cards that represent the consonant or vowel sound that the child is working on. These sounds each have a name and a “hand cue” to go with it. For example the /p/ sound can be called the “Popcorn Sound” and I use an open hand a the the lips and push it away from my lips when I say /p/.
The Popcorn Sound
By providing the child with the auditory model paired with the movement of the hand cue and the visual picture the child is more likely to make an association with the correct way to make the sound!
Visual picture cues paired with the auditory model can be incorporated into classroom reading programs, drill articulation work and play-based therapy. The visual cues are environmental sounds that the child is familiar with (like the /k/ sound for “coughing” or the /sh/ sound as the “quiet” sound).
Speech Sound Cue Cards
The /k/ or the “Coughing Sound” and the /sh/ or the “quiet sound” with descriptions of hand cues.
The Speech Sound Cue cards work well with children exhibiting Childhood Apraxia of Speech CAS). A motor based approach for CAS is critical for facilitating motor planning and sequenced motor movements with combined sounds. Pairing a consonant with a vowel card (i.e. the “quiet sound” /sh/ with the vowel sound /u/ as in “shoe”) and modeling the motor sequence helps the child make that neural connection. Moving your finger (or the child’s finger) from the consonant to the vowel cue card incorporates the fluid movement intended for the sound sequence.
Children with CAS many times exhibit vowel distortions where the hand cues imitating the lip and jaw shapes can assist with the correct vowel movements.
Children with Phonological Processing Disorders (or when a child makes a predictable patterns of speech sound errors) also benefit from therapy using speech sound cue cards. For example, if a child is working on “Fronting” (producing velar sounds in the front of the mouth), the velar speech sound cue cards can be used together to target the /k/ and /g/ sounds. Often I target several words in play-based therapy for children with phonological processing disorders and have the speech sound cue cards in the vicinity of the toys we are using to refer to when the child’s target word comes up.
For easy storage of the cue cards, I punch a hole in the corner of each card and put them on a circular ring binder clip. The target sounds can be easily removed for use in therapy. I’m always on the go, so this storage method works for me. I’ve also seen therapists store the cards in a binder in baseball card plastic pockets for easy access.
The Speech sound cue cards can also be utilized as a tool for emerging literacy, early acquisition of speech and for traditional articulation therapy
CLICK TO PURCHASE THIS RESOURCE
Animals shoving and pushing each other targeting the phonological process of “Stopping”.
Less is MORE: Toy Selection for Preschoolers
DUMP SCORE!
I found this wooden box of blocks at my local dump!
Ok, I admit it, I LOVE finding free stuff, especially at our local dump. As I was dumping my “way too full” trash, I saw this crate of wooden blocks, I have these exact blocks at home, but I grabbed them for one of my families.
Today I brought the blocks to that wonderful family (they have 3 children, 2 under 4). The kids were so excited to start playing and building with the blocks and the Mom said, “I love these kinds of toys where the kids can use their imagination without it being in the cookie cutter way”. Brilliant!!!
Bells, batteries and whistles vs. Blocks.
The best way to choose activities to promote speech, language and cognitive development:
1) The best toys are not “toys” at all!
Oftentimes, regular everyday items that you have in your home make the best activities!
Think about covering a table or chair with a blanket. Bingo, it’s a cave for a bear, the bottom of a pirate ship or a tent for camping. This simple activity can target many goals to increase spontaneous expressive language.
Grab some spoons, cups, pots and pans. Cook a pretend dinner, make some music, have a tea party!
2) YOU (the adult) make a fantastic toy.
Sing songs
Play peek-a boo
Play hide and seek (with your self or items in your home)
Bump your child up and down on your legs
3) Using active play is always fun
Run to the door and back
Throw pillows off the bed and on the bed
Hide under and behind furniture
4) If you or your family buy toys, try to stick with the oldies!
Some great ones are:
Wooden blocks
Balls and ball ramps
Toy train tracks/ trains
Doll houses with furniture and dolls
Tea set
Play kitchen and pretend food, cups, plates etc.
Dolls, clothing, blanket
Dress up clothes
Potato Head
Play-do with rolling pin and cookie cutters
Puppets
Books, books, books (books promote play, language and learning)
5) If you have tons of “bells and whistles” toys, consider swapping them out.
Maybe have one noise making toy out at a time with an “open ended” toy to balance. Those lights and noise making toys can be fun and can have a place in play, just have less at one time and balance their use.
A study from the University of Toledo in Ohio (2017) pointed out that “an abundance of toys present reduced quality of toddlers’ play.” Having fewer toys can lead a young child to focus and engage in more creative, imaginative play, according to the study. Fewer toys, it turns out, result in healthier play, and, ultimately, deeper cognitive development. (Psychology Today December 2017).
SO……. have fun, keep your eyes open at the dump :-) and PLAY!!!!
Local Playground Communication Board
It all begins with an idea.
My sister and I started this journey while walking around Mirror Lake (a 2.7 mile walk around a lake passing by a beach, tennis courts, and town with Mountain views). As an early intervention and preschool SLP, I thought it would be great to have a communication board built at our local playground to provide a mode of communication for non verbal, minimally verbal and individuals who have any difficulty with communication. In addition, a playground communication board would also facilitate young children's learning of new vocabulary and reading. This board would be an important accessibility option as well as an awareness tool in Lake Placid.
My sister is a real-estate agent and she is great at getting things done quickly and efficiently, so we made a great team since I was the “Communication expert”! I have been using symbols from “Smarty Symbols” company with my students for communication for a few years and knew that the company recently started to create community and school communication boards.
The following steps are just a guideline for others who would like to implement a communication board in their community or school, since they are specific to our area. I hope you find this helpful and we see communication boards like these in more places! We went through the following steps to make this board a reality!
Find designers that create these boards or create the symbols. I read and researched about some people who created boards using Boardmaker® symbols and used local sign companies or organizations who were interested in building signs to after they were printed on a larger scale. Since I was already using Smarty Symbols with my students, I combed through Smarty Symbols website https://smartysymbols.com/playground-communication-board about community communication boards. The website answered our initial questions about size, cost and materials for the board and gave us materials that we could use in any presentations. There are plenty of pictures of sample boards on the site and they provide a pamphlet to use. After looking through the site, we had a phone conversation and got more specific help from a representative from SmartySymbols (Remi Salami). She was super helpful and as a fellow SLP, she was a wonderful resource!
Met with our local government boards to get the installation approved. In Lake Placid, we had to get approval from the Village Board before anything, since the playground is housed in the Village.
We prepared a short 7 minute presentation on answering 3 questions: What is a playground communication board?; How will it benefit our community? and How much does it cost? (we also answered specific questions regarding size, best materials to use and the possibility of having a bilingual board).
The Village Board loved the idea and even suggested having boards in other locations in the village after seeing how this “pilot communication board” did. The Village board eventually agreed to pay half of the cost if the Town Board paid the rest. We had an appointment to present to the Town Board at the end of July, but luckily a local organization stepped up to cover the full cost!
3. Locate Funding for the Playground Communication Board.
We posted the potential project on our local community Facebook page and were met with really positive responses. People offered suggestions on where to get funding. Some options from that post and other options that we explored were funding from State Grants, funding from local organizations like Rotary Club, Lions Club, Kiwanis Club, Go Fund Me page, donations from local businesses and individuals in the community. I would advise you to ask in your own communities. This is such a positive project!
4. After the final approval from the Village Board, we met with the Village “Appearance Committee”. With input from us, this committee approved placement of the board (we wanted double sided to allow access from the playground and from other on the walkway walking passed the playground toward our beach), and we discussed general aesthetics of the board (i.e. the colors of the board background, the height of the board and the posts and frame). The village agreed to install the board at no cost! During our meeting with the committee, one of the members suggested that our local “Chamber of Commerce” (called ROOST Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism) would pay in full for the board. The next morning she emailed with the great news that they would pay for the communication board and posts (and frame if needed).
5) Symbol Selection. Smarty Symbols has complete boards as samples and allows the purchaser to add symbols that are specific to your area. The board includes verbs, greetings, playground equipment, basic needs symbols, questions, feelings in addition to letters and numbers. The only issue with adding symbols is that to add a symbol, another has to be taken away. As a SLP who has been designing picture boards for my students, I knew what I wanted to add. I wanted the board to be as functional as possible for as many as possible and I wanted the board to be used for communication during play! It was really important to not only have symbols for basic needs (i.e.”hungry, cold”) but also incorporate symbols to enhance play and fun (i.e. “swing, jump, come with me”). We added symbols like “Go to the beach”, “Let’s play tennis” and “mountains” because our specific location includes these areas. We were able to combine some symbols into one to make room for our new symbols.
Communication Board out of the box from Smarty Symbols
For your board, be sure to include symbols specific to your location, include symbols for basic needs AND play. Keep in mind with Smarty Symbols boards, the more symbols you change, the more it costs.
We also wanted the words under the symbols to be both English and Spanish. There was some discussion about English and French since we live so close to the Canadian Border, but we decided on Spanish for this board since we have many Spanish only speaking visitors to our area (maybe if we have another board, it will have French!).
The Framed Board
The Lake Placid Village Staff framed the board with pine and added plexiglass to both sides to protect from our harsh winters.
6) After we got the board delivered, we brought it to the Village Department and after a discussion about how we wanted it mounted, they worked their magic! Our area gets tons of snow and harsh weather, so the Village workers encased the board in a wooden frame with plexiglass on both sides. They mounted the board with chains onto log posts to fit in with our Adirondack theme.
Added symbols that personalized the board for our community including “mountains, lake, dog and tennis courts”
The completed Playground Communication Board Project! A combined effort and we are so pleased with the result!
Communication Board
Book
Here is a free foldable, printable story that I made and used with my students that you could use also! (click the picture for your own copy)