As a part of Mental Wellness Month I wanted to share my favorite self-care ideas. “Self-care” is a hot topic these days, but I often find myself debating about what it really is. Sometimes I relate it to regulation so that I think of self-care as “doing things that keep me at my most regulated, …
Following directions is a common goal for my patients of all ages. I try to keep these activities fun and play-based, but for the older kids that’s an especially challenging endeavor. Here are some of my favorite activities for working on following directions… Here are some more ideas for using Toca Kitchen Monsters in speech …
Please read about the basics about therapy dogs and animal-assisted intervention in speech-language pathology on my original post here. AAI receptive langauge activities are as varied as receptive langauge goals. When working on single-step directions I set out color sorting bowls and tell the patient which bowl to put each treat into. When working on …
As children with social skills deficits try to navigate our highly-social world they must first learn the basics (eye contact, following eye-gaze, attending to others, etc.) and then learn to use those skills to identify others’ emotions, inference the cause of the emotions, and problem-solve the situations causing these emotions. In Toca Boca World I …
I started using Rory’s Story Cubes with a child who was making the same narrative every time we did this activity and now I love them! You can get them as physical dice or as an app from the Google Play or Apple stores. As you can see in the infographic above, I’ll roll the …
In case you don’t know: Toca Life World is a FREE app that many of the children I work with love. Here’s the link for the android version of Toca Life World and here’s the link for the iPad version. When I use it for following directions I give my in-person patients one of my iPads with Toca …
I often get into a “groove” while working. While this means I’m able to complete my work faster than when I started, it also means I become less mindful about the purpose behind my work. I find it really helpful to take a step back a couple times each year and examine why I’m doing …
If you’ve seen any of my past posts you already know I LOVE Toca Boca World! In my “Toca Office” I set up a room for irregular past-tense verbs. I only have to prepare the room once (unless the game crashes, which happens only once or twice a year and only after I download a …
I often get parents who are family, friends, and colleagues asking me whether their child needs speech & language treatment. I honestly can’t answer without more information. Usually before a child receives treatment the following steps are made: Rather than just tell concerned parents that I don’t know whether their child could receive speech and …
One of my patients requested we play the “Donkey Hodie™ Froyo Stand” game during their reward/choose time. I was blown away to realize: “This is a GREAT multi-step directions game!” It’s FREE, it can be played on the iPad’s PBS Kids app, the android PBS Kids app, or even on the website! This means parents …
