Happy Holidays

If you are like me (and most women in general) then you too peruse the malls for any bargain you can find. One of my favourite elements of retail shopping is looking for new therapy material. There are three toy shops in my area that I frequent, and I have started to consider myself a bit of a collector now. There are also specific brands of toys that I am beginning to prefer.  That’s not what I want to talk about today though. Today I want to bring up those awesome little discoveries that one finds unexpectedly. Actually, I now expect to find these awesome discoveries twice a year, namely at Christmas and Easter time at Woolworths. Their holiday items are becoming more arbitrary but I do find them rather exciting. The most exciting part for therapists and parents is that if you hang on a week or two after said holiday these items are reduced to anything from 25-75%.

A few years ago I found the loveliest farm-animal finger puppets that came with a small Easter egg inside; the year before that it was full sized Winnie-the-Pooh puppets over a giant Easter egg. This year it is little plastic robots and plastic ice-cream cones that open with an explosion of jelly beans. Now what does a robot or ice-cream cone, have to do with Easter you ask? Well if you come up with the answer please let me know too! I’m not complaining though because I am finding some very exciting uses for these in therapy and the jelly beans disappeared amongst our therapy staff very quickly.

I have loved hiding targets for vocabulary and articulation in these little toys and the children I see have loved it too. The element of surprise has been a real help in keeping the attention of otherwise inattentive little kiddos.

The basis of articulation therapy is really to get as many drills of the target sound in the desired word position as many times as you possibly can. Articulation therapy is quite a process and for more detailed information please click here and here. I use pictures to target specific sounds and I often use Black Sheep Press or the lovely articulation sheets from Mommy SpeechTherapy. I then cut them apart and lay each one face down on the table. I have been quite predictable in that I have used the ice-cream cones for the girls (they are in pretty pink and purple colours) and the robots for the boys. I have then either the robot or the ice cream cones out on the table too. The child takes one picture at a time and then says the target word (so we can learn what the pictures are) and then hides the picture in the toy. Once all the words are hidden I then hide the robots/ice cream cones around the therapy room. The child then gets to run around finding them (Like an Easter egg hunt, just to make them relevant). When they find one they have to open it and use their best sound to say the word (voila! spontaneous production!).  

I’m going to enjoy these little gems until the next holiday season comes around.

For more information on what articulation disorders are check this out.

For more resources for articulation therapy ideas go here.