Ideas for a fun speech therapy session

No matter how good a person is at their job, sometimes they feel they need a refreshment, something different and fun. Routine is a problem in our daily work, especially when working with young children, who get bored easily. So here are several ideas that can be incorporated into a speech therapy session and will change the mood of young and old alike.

Motion

All children love to move! Through movement, they discover and learn new things faster while strengthening skills such as vocabulary, articulation, following directions, categories, etc.

• Yoga. The child can also for as long as he maintains the pose, say 5 words that you have asked him. In addition, he will practice body awareness and right-left perception.

• Outdoor space: go outside in a yard or go to the nearest playground. The child can do slide, swing, hopscotch, race. Ask the child to describe the toys, how they are played or just work with colors and materials. You can also reinforce social skills by having the child talk with other children on the playground. In addition, you will be able to work on spatial concepts and sizes.

• Ball: you can throw the ball to each other and say words that start with a specific letter or words of a specific category, e.g. fruit. You can also have the child throw the ball 5 times at a target or into a basket each time they hit one of your targets.

Board games

A board game, in addition to being a recreational tool, can also be a good therapeutic tool. You can change the rules or use them as they are. Board games also help to strengthen vocabulary and memory, find solutions to everyday situations, improve articulation and phonology, etc. For example, the classic Snakes and Ladders can be adapted and players in order to progress should produce the words or phonemes, present in the squares. Build your own Snakes and Ladders board game according to the child's needs.

Thematic games

The child comes to the session and sings you Elsa's song or shows you his favorite Spiderman shirt. Take advantage of it! Children "get hooked" on certain heroes and children's toys and only want to engage with them. Draw their hero/heroine, sing the songs of the animation movie, describe pictures of the hero, say vocabulary related to the animation, use symbolic play related to the plot of the animation.

Crafts

Take out from the cupboard cardboard, glue, scissors, glitter, tongue depressors, finger paints and pom poms. Crafts are also a creative and fun way to practice and reinforce skills such as following directions, memory, staying on task-concentration, using vocabulary (tools), learning numbers, quantities, letters, etc.

The addition of such activities to the speech therapy intervention program certainly strengthens the therapeutic relationship between the child and the therapist. This makes the child more cooperative and willing to work and do exercises that he or she might not do otherwise. It is also important to remember that children always learn best when they are playing.

From the Synopsis team