After posting some easy speech therapy activities for kids with Apraxia of Speech last week, so many of you asked me to share ideas for how to use toys for speech therapy to target articulation, phonology, and language!
I am going to share with you how you can use one activity/toy in your therapy sessions ALL WEEK (or even MONTH!)! Today, let's talk about BUILDING TOYS!
Building toys, such as Magformers, Lego, K’nex, or Blocks) can be used to target just about any speech and/or language goal.
You can pair them with a set of versatile visuals to support your students (The visuals pictured are from my Language and Behavior Visuals Bundle - I use these in every single session because there’s a visual for everything in there!)
Target the following goals using Building Toys:
Spatial Concepts: While building, have the child tell you (or you tell them) where to put a piece. You can add figurines to go in/out/on top of your building when you create it.
Following Directions: Tell the child how to put the pieces together and in what order. Don’t limit your self to first/then directions! You can target any type of direction, including multi-step directions and before/after directions.
Describing: Have the child describe their creation to you.
Adjectives: Tall, Colorful, Short, Tiny, Strong, Weak.
Requesting: Keep the pieces in a clear container or plastic bag. Shake the bag and have the child request another piece.
Opposites: Make structures that are tall/short, big/small, wide/thin.
Compare/Contrast: Each of you can build something - have the child tell you how your creations are the same/different.
Verbs: Topple, Build, Stack, Tumble, Create, Break, Fix.
Speech Sounds:
P: Pick, Up, Pink, Purple, Apart
B: Blue, Back, Best
T: Top, To, Two, It
D: Do, Done
F: Four, Fun, Fall, Fit, Off
V: Have, Cave
S: Some, House
Z: Amazing
SH: Show, Crash,
K: Cave, Keep, Knock,
G: Go, Get
R: Ready, Red, Carry,
S-blends: Spot, Snap, Store
L-blends: Place, Blue,
Early word shapes: Off, On, In, My, Me, You, Top.
This is not an exhaustive list!!
Remember - make the toy work for YOU and YOUR child’s goals!
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