Read along books with audio

‘book share' time which incorporates recurrent themes- carrier phrases with target words, grammar and sounds.

Reading books to a class.

Syntax:

•  Use Child Centred -Syntax Stories e.g. target = Subject, Object, Verb (SVO) constructions. E.g. Book about making fruit salad- “the boy peels the orange, the girl cuts the apple” etc.

Semantics:

•  In order to provide children with a framework for the story, begin with ‘pre-reading activities' such as introducing characters/setting, giving an outline/summary of the story, and explaining unfamiliar words. Encourage children to participate before, during, and after the narrative. There are many options reading activities during the story, for example chanting activities, descriptive tasks (emotions, sizes, shapes, colours etc) and story interpretation tasks (thinking of alternative endings etc). Post-reading activities may include art and movement activities, storyboards, re-enactments, drawings and sequential memory tasks. ( Owens and Robinson 1997).

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Choose stories which maximise number of words containing target sounds. Can manipulate story time to target particular phonemes e.g. /f/: use a “Where's Wally?” style book in which everyone, for example tries to find pictures starting with a /f/ sound.

•  Read nursery rhymes/books with rhyming words to assist in developing an awareness of onset/rime e.g. “ cat and mat have different starting sounds but the same ending sounds. This means they rhyme!”. This assists phonological awareness.

CAS:

Velleman (2003, 2006) has made a couple of suggestions for how to incorporate CAS therapy into book time. They are as follows:

•  Counting books: repeat the name of the object (“ball, ball, ball”) instead of counting the number of objects. Pointing to the sheep in counting book while saying “baa baa baa baa.”

•  The ‘ba-ba-board'- paste the same set of pictures into several spiral notebooks. Line the books up on the table, flipping pages as appropriate. Group pictures phonetically. E.g. the first section of each 'stop' book includes syllables with initial /b/: “bee, baa, boo, bow, boy, buy, bay”. Thus, the entire row of stops books can be lined up and turned to the ‘bee' page, which has a picture of a buzzing bee on every page. The child can then point to and name each picture one by one as he walks along the row. Then if successful attempts are made you would flip all the books over to the next page (ie. ‘baa' with sheep on each page). The next section in the stops book may be initial ‘d' syllables. If syllables do not have pictures (e.g. Doy) then do not include them. If these books are successful for the child, more books can be made to include fricative-initial syllables, nasal-initial, etc. For further details and assistance consult a speech pathologist before implementing these books in the classroom.

Literacy:

•  Any type of reading has potential for improving literacy skills. This can be achieved through using the various tasks such as ‘guided reading' and ‘dialogic reading', which have been discussed within this website within the literacy section.

•  Whilst reading stories discuss various aspects of the story such as the story structure eg. Characters, plot as well as the text within the book eg. sentences, paragraphs, grammatical markers etc.

Dysarthria:

•  Discuss a book with a child and encourage them to use speech phrasing techniques whilst doing so if they lack respiratory support. Tell them to take lots of breaths and only say a few words on each breath. Modelling of correct speech phrasing should be given and the child asked to follow.

•  Choose books that have rhymes or are repetitive so child can practice correct stress patterning in phrases. Model the phrase to the child then ask them to follow.  

Outdoor Play-sandpits, play ground

Syntax:

•  Use Child Centred –ILS, Parallel talk e.g. target: Conjunction, ‘and' e.g. Say (model): “I am making a cake and biscuits” and look expectantly at child to respond with e.g. “I'm making cakes and pies” or target: determiners- article ‘the'. Look at a selected few of objects child is playing with. Ask the child to hide one of the objects (while you have your eyes closed) and guess which one has been hidden. E.g. “The bucket? The car?” Then after adequate modelling of target reverse roles so child is guessing.

Semantics:

•  Use a ‘self talk' technique by describing your own actions while playing in the sand pit. E.g. “I'm building a sand castle. I'm going to make it very big. I'm putting more sand on the top. Now it's very big!”

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Hide things in the sandpit that relate to target sound and have child find them and say aloud word/sound as they do so.

CAS:

•  Teach new words in utterances that normally developing children really use (e.g. “Let's ___”, “More ___, please”; Stop ___”, and “Gimme ___”) (Velleman, 2003).

•  On the swing and slide model words with distinctive pitch patterns, and strong emotional meaning as they are paired with actions (e.g. uh-oh, wow, wee, yay).

Literacy:

•  Scripts of various routines such as making dinner, or role playing other routines using sand and equipment as props.

•  The child may be requested by the educator to make something in the sand pit beginning with /s/ or rhyming with /take/. This will assist with the development of their phonological awareness skills.

Syntax:

•  Use Clinician Directed, drill play- e.g. target: present progressive e.g. Say “What are you doing?” If child responds with e.g. “Shoes on ”, you say “I'm putting my shoes on ” and child will be likely to imitate e.g. “putting shoes on ”.

Semantics:

•  Try a large scale routine involving a group of preschool children to facilitate the social use of language. For example, establish routine of hand-washing before morning tea break. While children are lining-up to wash their hands, teach the child at the head of the line to turn the handle of a paper towel dispenser for the child with wet hands. Then prompt peer-directed requests such as ‘can I have some paper please?' ‘Do you need to dry you hands? etc. ( Hadley and Schuele 1998).

CAS:

•  A child with CAS with few intelligible vocalisations or words may need to use alternative communication strategies to reduce frustration during daily activities: gestures, leading, sign, pictures ( PECS to enable the child to request the action or object pictured).

Literacy:

•  The child can discuss with the educator the sequence of events in which will be occurring during the day. The child may expand on this task by adding aspects such as the time of the events, materials needed to complete each event, the teacher/students involved within each event etc.

•  Scripts are commonly using with daily routine.

Dysarthria:

•  To eliminate frustration and the time taken to convey messages for a child whose vocalisations are unintelligible teach the child to recognise that a communication breakdown has occurred and use natural gestures to convey their message. They should be encouraged to use speech whilst using natural gestures.

•  Communication boards that convey the predictable vocabulary associated with daily activities could also be used. They could be placed in areas where daily activities occur so they can be accessed quickly and don't have to be carried around with the child. If a child is able to vocalise and does not rely solely on alternative forms of communication they should be encouraged to use speech rather then relying completely on the use of the communication boards.

Photos of family, friends and pets

Syntax:

•  Use Clinician Directed, drill- e.g. target: adjectives- tall, short. Say “Look at this picture…this is a tall man”. Wait for child to respond with e.g.: “man”, then say: “say tall man” Or target: adjectives (colours) brown, black Show the child a picture of a brown (dog) and name it: “A brown dog. This is brown .” Identify and name other objects in the photo which are brown. Secondly introduce another colour e.g. black and identify and name pets/objects which are black. Thirdly, present two photos, each of a pet animal of the target colours and request (and model) use of command structure “Give me the (brown dog)”.When child makes the correct selection, support him/her in using target utterances by offering both photo's and waiting for their choice.

Semantics:

•  Use the technique of expansions while interacting with the child. E.g. if the child says “Mummy dress” respond with “Yes, Mummy is wearing a pretty dress in this photo!”

CAS:

•  Core social concepts the child needs to learn to a level of automaticity: name of siblings, pets, significant others, and her/him self!

•  Pick out things in the photo that the child can make sound effects for: animal noises, vehicle noises, etc.

Literacy:

•  The child might describe what they did on the day that the photo was taken. They may further use the stickwriting technique to draw their own sequence of events.

•  The child might be asked to label all of the items within the picture that have 2 syllables, start with /t/ etc. Similarly the game ‘I spy' can be used e.g. ‘I spy something with my little eye starting with t'.

Dysarthria:

•  Ask the child to tell you about their family members. Whilst doing so model correct phrase patterning and ask the child to follow.

Puzzles

Syntax:

•  Use Hybrid, milieu therapy (incidental teaching) e.g. target: possessive pronouns ‘my, ‘your' Place a puzzle piece out of reach and waits for the child to respond. If the child points to the puzzle piece, say: “you need to tell me it's your turn…say my turn”.

Semantics:

•  The use of a puzzle with a number of pieces (simple jigsaw puzzles etc) can be an effective motivational tool in a drill-play activity. For example, if showing picture cards of fruit to a child and requesting they name the fruit, each time the child gives the correct response they can put a piece of the puzzle in place. Alternatively, puzzles which contain pictures of target vocabulary may be useful.

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Choose puzzles that may relate to target sounds. Talk about pictures on the pieces before they are put in place. Model target sounds as much as possible.

CAS

•  Use puzzles with individual puzzle pieces to enable sound effect productions, e.g. animal puzzle, transport puzzle, instrument puzzle.

•  Allow the child to fill-in-the-blank, such as “This is a ___”, as the child places down each individual puzzle piece.

Literacy:

•  Use puzzles pictures of single objects and request the child to identify; a word that rhymes with the object, the initial sounds, final sound or request the child to segment the word into separate sounds.

Dysarthria:

•  Every time a child puts a piece of the puzzle in instruct them to practice a target sound that they are having difficulty articulating.

Play doh

Syntax:

•  Use Child Centred- Auditory Bombardment of target structure/s e.g. target: present progressive- ing (e.g. on listening device present a dialogue as follows: “I am rolling the play doh, I am cutting the play doh, I am patting the play doh” etc).

Semantics:

•  While playing with the Play doh engage in “parallel talk”, where you talk aloud about what the child is doing. E.g. “You're squishing the Play doh! Now you are rolling it. Roll, roll, roll. You have made it long and skinny! It looks like a long worm.”

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Model target sounds to accompany actions e.g. “cut cut cut the playdoh” for /k/

CAS:

•  Assist the child to make objects out of play doh that rhyme. Then play rhyming games-at the CVC level - cat, bat, mat, hat…

Literacy:

•  Allow the child to construct an object out of play doh and then request that they tell you a story using that object.

Dollhouse

Syntax:

•  Use Hybrid, milieu teaching (mand-model) e.g. target: prepositions (on, under, next to, between etc) Encourage the child to engage with selected toys. If child looks/points of holds a toy e.g. doll, say “Where is the doll?” If the child responds with e.g. “ on bed”, praise and give child the doll.

Semantics:

•  Employ the Indirect language Stimulation technique of extensions technique while playing with the dollhouse. E.g. If the child says “Dolly bed” extend the utterance by responding “Oh, she must be sleepy.'

CAS:

•  When a child with CAS is past CV and CVCV (reduplicated level-“bye-bye”) syllables, practice can begin on harmonised non-reduplicated CVCV forms with either matching vowels but different consonants, as in “TV” or matching consonants but different vowels, as in “baby” (Velleman, 2003).

•  Need to include words that are at the word shape and syllable level the child is currently at, for the child to be successful.

Literacy:

•  Through the use of event structures and scripts, the child can role play events that may occur within the family home e.g. brushing your teeth and getting ready for school etc.

Building

Syntax:

•  Use Clinician Directed modelling e.g. target comparatives/superlatives (e.g. bigger, biggest). Play with two children and model the target structure with the child who is already using the language form e.g. Say “I am building a big tower. Child 1 responds: “mines bigger !” Say: “no mines the biggest ” Child 1 responds: “no mine is the biggest , look!” Say: “Ah yes it is bigger than mine”.

Semantics:

•  Use an Indirect Language Stimulation technique such as Buildups and breakdowns , where you expand the child's utterance into a complete grammatical sentence and then break it down while retaining the same content in all models. E.g. if the child says “Blue block” respond with “It's a blue block. It's a big blue block. Blue block. Blue. Block. The block is blue. It's big. Big. It's a big blue block” etc.

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Model words containing target phoneme/s. Emphasise these words and repeat them as much as is appropriate.

CAS:

•  Production of repeated syllable sequences while building up the blocks (e.g. babababa).

•  A different coloured block can be introduced with an articulatory change in the syllable sequence (e.g. bababada, badababa).

Literacy:

•  Choose a common word e.g. /take/ and request that the child identify as many words as they can that rhyme with /take/. For each word that they identify that receive a block in the aim of building the biggest tower.

Dysarthria:

•  Every time the child picks up a block instruct them to practice a target sound.  

Painting

Syntax:

•  Use CD Modelling or Hybrid (focussed stimulation) e.g. target auxiliary ‘are' e.g. Say: “ Are you painting a dog?...You are painting a dog. Are you painting one or two dogs…ok you are painting one dog”.

Semantics:

•  This activity can be used to build the child ‘colour' vocabulary. Use ILS techniques and auditory bombardment relating to the different colours the child uses. Perhaps suggest that a child used a specific colour to target receptive vocabulary. Once their picture is finished, ask the child to tell you what colours they used for particular parts of their painting.

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Example of how to target /k/: everytime the child needs a new item instruct him/her to say “ C an I have the ___?” (and say which colour/paintbrush/paper etc)

CAS:

•  Teach carrier phrases , for example, “I wanna ____”, “Let's ___”.

Literacy:

•  The child can paint all objects that they can think of that contain the sound /k/, or alternatively the child could paint all objects beginning with /l/ etc.

•  The child could paint a sequence of events required to fulfil an activity e.g. making a cake etc.

Dysarthria:

•  Ask the child to tell you what they are painting. Model correct stress patterning to them and ask them to follow. E.g I am painting a…..

Show and Tell

Syntax:

•  Use Hybrid, (vertical structuring) target: past tense, complex sentence structure with use of conjunctions e.g. Say “What did you do on the weekend?” Wait for child to respond with e.g. “Walked in park”. You reply with “uh huh…what else”. Child may respond “I ate ice cream”. You support the use of the conjunction by saying “Great, you walked in the park and ate ice-cream, say ‘I walked in the park and ate ice cream' ” and wait for imitation.

Semantics:

•  This activity is good in establishing social language skills. Teach every child to always introduce their show and tell piece with “Good morning everyone. My name is ….. and today my show'n'tell is……./ I'm going to tell you about ….” Etc.

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Can create theme for show ‘n' tell e.g. everyone to bring in something that has an /s/ sound.

CAS:

•  For a chid with minimal vocalisations this is a great time to be modelling simple syllables, e.g. “wow”, “yay”, “whoa”, uh-oh”. Velleman (2003) suggests that the child is more likely to learn these words more easily as the emotional content of these words makes them more motivating to learn.

Literacy:

•  The child is encouraged to describe an event orally, with prompting from the educator through the use of questions in order to gauge information that is ‘missing' from their description.

•  Write up on the board the main aspects e.g. people involved, where you went, the weather etc. that they must include within their descriptions.

Dysarthria:

•  If child lacks respiratory support encourage them to use speech phrasing techniques. Instruct them to take a breath and only say a few words before taking another breath.

Daily routine -talking about the weather, the date, day,

Syntax:

•  Use Child Centred (ILS) to support productions of target or Clinician Directed (drill or modelling) e.g. target: past, future, or present tense verbs. E.g. using past tense. Ask children to assist you to draw or paste one picture on each day of the previous week of the class calendar. Provide a model for the first day, say “On Monday we jumped on the trampoline” then request “Can someone tell me what we did on Tuesday? You can also simultaneously target adverbs of time (‘now', ‘today', ‘tomorrow' and ‘yesterday') by replacing these with day of the week.

Semantics:

•  These type of routines can be used to facilitate the learning of more advanced semantic concepts such as temporal categories (months, days of the week etc).

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Model words for the child that contain target phonemes. Ask them binary questions e.g. target is /l/ ask child “is it time for lunch or is it time for learning?”. The child is forced to say one of these /l words.

CAS:

•  Practicing useful verbal routines, e.g. reciting the days of the week, for automaticity.

Dysarthria:

•  Use carrier phrases to model correct stress patterning and ask child to follow. E.g Today is ….

Obstacle course/Treasure Hunts

Syntax:

•  Use Child Centred (ILS) or Milieu Therapy (mand-model) target prepositions (on, under, in front, behind) e.g. Child walks towards climbing frame. You mand, “What do you want to do?” May also target comprehension of complex sentences. Play a game where you begin as the leader and instruct each child e.g. “climb under the tyre and stand in the sandpit”, to complete the obstacle course. Reverse roles with a child acting as leader to encourage use of target forms.

Semantics

•  This is activity is another that would work particularly well as motivation in a ‘drill play' setting. For example, the child could search for a number of objects (of target vocabulary) hidden around a room. When finding an object they are required to name it, and then receive a token reinforcement (a piece of ‘treasure' etc).

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Treasure Hunts can be a creative way to elicit target sounds from child. Hide things which relate to the sound and have the child say them aloud as they find them.

CAS:

•  Hide objects that represent the syllable level the child is currently working on, e.g., CVC: bib, bat, hat, cup, etc.

Literacy:

•  Construct a list of complex phrases, so in order for the child to find that objects they must ‘crack the code'. Complex phrases may consist of for eg. ‘It rhymes with heather' or it's first sound is /f/' (feather). These activities will need to be modified according to the child's age and focus of intervention.

•  The child may primarily read a storybook with the educator. Once the book is discussed the children may be presented with a treasure hunt, required to find main objects that were expressed within the storybook. Once the treasure hunt is completed the child may be asked how the objects relate to the storybook.

Dysarthria:

•  After the child has found an object they have to return it and use correct stress patterning to say what it is using a given carrier phrase. E.g I found a ….

•  Encourage the child to describe the object and if they have difficulty with respiratory support for long utterances instruct them to use speech phrasing techniques. Tell them to take more breaths and say less words per breath. This can be modelled to the child.

•  Hide objects that start with target sounds. Ask the child to then say what they have found .

Cooking

Syntax:

•  Use Hybrid (focussed stimulation of vertical structuring) e.g. target conjunctions or present tense. Say: You put in the sugar and the flour. The child may respond: “ put in sugar” You reply: “What else do you put in the bowl?” Child: “ put in flour”. You say: “Yes, you put in the flour and the sugar”.

Semantics:

•  As this is an activity which requires specific items/utensils/foods, it would be useful in eliciting ‘requests' from a child. For example, keep some particular, necessary objects out of the child's reach. When it comes time that they need to utilise one of these, but do not offer a request , ask ‘why have you stopped cooking? ' Do not provide the object until the child makes an utterance. If they do not respond, continue with “Do you need something? Tell me what you need”. If there is still no response, model ‘You need a spoon. Say I need a spoon. '

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Model target sounds in words that relate to the cooking activity e.g. if target sound is /k/ the child can decorate c ookies e.g. “Lets put icing on the cookie, what a yummy cookie, what else can we put on the cookie?”

CAS:

•  Repetition of actions: cut cut cut; pour pour pour; mix mix mix; cook cook cook, etc.

Literacy:

•  The recipe may be discussed with the child primarily. The child will then ‘cook' following the recipe. Once the child has completed this task they may then use stickwriting in order describe the procedure that they just used through the ‘cooking' process.

•  As each ingredient is place within the bowl for example, the child may have to identify the initial and final sounds of the word.

•  Cloze procedure may also be used e.g. we have to ____ the eggs into the ______.

Modelling of correct grammar in daily activities

Syntax:

•  Use CD modelling/ ILS-target copula ‘am' e.g. Say: “I am a clown, what are you?” Wait for child to respond with e.g. “I am dog”. You reply with an extension of the utterance “Oh you are a dog, woof, woof”.

Semantics:

•  While children are engaged in pretend play (e.g. playing ‘doctors') help increase their ‘script knowledge' by teaching them about characters, props, sequences of events and dialogue etc. Train the children in forming a script. Have the children practice the script multiple times, mastering their roles, until there are few violations from the script. Prompting and modelling techniques can be used ( Lederer, 2002).

Articulation/Phonology:

•  Pick a theme which maximises the opportunity to use words containing target phoneme e.g. things which start with /f/ sound such as ‘firemen' ‘farmers' ‘fortune-tellers' etc.

CAS:

•  Model use of core social concepts during group play: “Mine!” or “Gimme” to reduce frustration levels.

•  Repetitions can be incorporated into pretend play, for example, pretending to set the table while saying “bowl bowl bowl bowl” (Velleman, 2003).

Literacy:

•  Event structures and scripts can be used within this activity to practice routines.

•  The children may read a storybook and then be required to dress up and re enact the story as they remember it. They may also describe their characters and the plot, climax etc.

Dysarthria:

•  For a child with limited or unintelligible vocabulary teach them to use natural gestures or signals to help with turn maintenance when playing with other children. For example raising a hand or tapping the other child on the shoulder to help to gain their attention.

Sequence activities- cutting, colouring, pasting, describing

Syntax:

•  Use Clinician Directed (Drill play, CD modelling), Hybrid (mand- model) e.g. target present progressive verbs e.g. Play a game of ‘Simon Says': Say “Simon says do cutting …tell me what you're doing”. Reverse roles to encourage more independent use of target forms. Or Use Child Centred (ILS) e.g. While child is participating in an art/craft activity e.g. pasting activity expand on child's expressions. E.g. Child says to you or another child “I paste the tree”. You reply with “Yes your pasting on the tree”.

Semantics:

•  Focus on specific categories of vocabulary by colouring pictures and cutting up cards then sorting these in to semantic groups.

Articulation/Phonology:

•  To teach concept of voicing provide sentence completion tasks where the child has to colour/cut out the missing word e.g. “ Kate is standing by the ____”(and the child must pick the voice-on picture i.e. gate) (Roth & Worthington, 2005).

CAS:

•  Provide utterance frames; “Let's___....cut, colour, paste, etc.”

Dysarthria:

•  To work on prosody ask the child to tell you what they are doing in each step. Model correct stress patterning to them and ask them to follow.

Making simple books- e.g. ‘book about me'

Syntax:

• Use CD modelling, ILS imitation. Target: pronoun ‘my' e.g. Say: “Look, who's this?” Wait for response and provide appropriate verbal support e.g. child may respond with “Me brother, me sister”. You reply with recast “oh, you say my brother and my sister”. However if no attempt is made provide model and request imitation.

Semantics:

• Can be used assist word-finding problems. Include in the book key information of important things to the child. E.g. family members, pets etc. Include pictures to serve as additional visual stimuli. Have the child use this book as an aid when having word-finding difficulties.

Articulation/Phonology:

•  The child could create a ‘sound book' in which pictures of things starting with particular sounds appear on separate pages. The teacher encourages the child to add to it regularly and talk about each page of the book. This promotes opportunities for practicing difficult sounds.

CAS:

•  Provide the child with the appropriate pictures that represent the syllable level they are currently working at. The child gets to paste them into the book while saying what the picture is. The book can then be kept for practice during ‘book time'.

Literacy:

• Using the correct story planning, the child will write or use pictographs to complete their own storybooks about a familiar event.
• The child may also create a rhyming book where the end word within each sentence rhymes.

  Dysarthria:

• Making a ‘book' about me for a child who has limited speech, is unintelligible or relies on alternative forms or communication may help them to initiate conversation with a communicative partner and make the topic of conversation clearer. It could also be used like a diary so that the child can take it home and use it to help talk about their day at preschool with their family.
• A ‘sound book' could also be used where the child sticks pictures that start with target sounds that the child is having difficulty articulating.

Labels & Signs, individual lockers

Syntax:

•  Use CD modelling or Child Centred (ILS) e.g. target: pronouns (e.g. my, yours, his, her) Clinician: “This is my lunchbox and that is your lunchbox…who's lunchbox is this? Say, my lunchbox”.

Semantics:

•  Good for building first lexicon. Label items around the toy room or pin up large posters on the wall containing target words with accompanying pictures. Label items in the kitchen. Use these as cues for employing language stimulation techniques with the child.

CAS:

•  For children with unintelligible speech, this is a great time for the child to practice their own name.

•  They can also learn their friend's names through repetitive labelling of other's belongings being modelled within the classroom.

Literacy:

•  The child may identify phonological awareness aspects within the names/signs etc. For example all names that contain the sound /t/ or words that rhyme with each name (these may also be nonsense words, as long as the rhyming sound is clearly identified and understood).