As a private practice provider, I believe a huge part of my focus on functional skills is helping children use age-expected speech and langauge skills during conversation. For many of my patients, this means we work on them using correct grammar during conversation. To work on conversational grammar with Disney short videos I periodically pause …
Toca Kitchen Monsters is another FREE app from Toca Boca. It’s another fun way to address following directions during a naturalistic/play-based activity. In this game you pull the left side of the screen over to get various foods and the right side of the screen to find ways to prepare the foods. You can use …
I think this is my patients’ favorite game! Although many Toca Boca games are free, this one costs $3.99. I usually use it for social inferencing (identifying each pets’ feelings and the cause of those feelings), but I use it for irregular past-tense verbs, too. As we play the game I’ll ask the kids questions …
For a lot of kids who are learning to navigate our highly-social world, some of the most advanced skills are inferencing others’ wants, needs, thoughts, and relationships. When I worked in a clinic with lots of people around I had lots of opportunities to practice these skills while using the people around us as examples. …
Disney shorts are the secret to my success with telehealth. When the word switched to online treatment due to the COVID-19 pandemic I started using these videos as an unstructured activity for grammar, pragmatic langauge, and narratives. Since then I’ve done lots of research about attention and brain waves during video calls and I find …
I started using Toca Boca World when all my appointments were still on telehealth (until I got my first round of COVID shots). A year later I have patients who still request it during in-person appointments. This open-ended video game is packed with things to explore and it’s really useful for speech and langauge treatment. …
I made this FREE Minecraft “Create-A-Story” slideshow that you can download and use without even downloading Minecraft! I use it in “edit” mode and have the kids choose the setting from the left of the 1st slide and the characters from the right of the 1st slide. Then I copy-and-paste their selection to the 2nd …
For my patients who master the conversation trains I switch to multi-timers. Once they master the multi-timers I start using this FREE conversation hot cocoa slideshow – this shows them how many turns they’re taking compared to their peer or me. I start by showing them the first slide, which has ideas for conversation on …
For patients who are working on creating narratives, grammar, and/or fluency, I’ll have them make narratives in Toca Boca World using the “movie” button. This button is only available in community locations (not in the houses you can customize). When you press and hold the button it will begin recording the video on the screen …
I love using these toys for irregular past-tense verbs! I use the Li’l Woodzeez camper set (cost: $34.99) for “drove” (but you can also use the Calico Critters car for $23.99 or the Honey Bee Acres school bus for $24.99), the Li’l Woodzeez airplane (cost: $32.99) for “sat,” “read,” “ate,” “fell (asleep),” “slept,” “woke,” “stood,” …
