I’ve got a couple of reaalllly wiggly kids that are working on articulation. Today, I took a break from the table and set up stations in a therapy gym. Each station had a set of 10 articulation cards that the children had to say three times before completing the station. Here were my Stations:
1. Trampoline Basketball: Jump on the trampoline while saying your word. If you said the word correctly-you got to throw a ball in the basketball hoop. This activity was interesting as several of my clients had difficulty jumping and “saying” their target word. Instead they would jump-and then stop and try to say the word. Obviously, for successful carryover, you need to be able to say your speech sounds while moving. It reminded me again of the importance of varying the location or what you are doing when working on articulation or speech sound production.
2. Roll Across. I had my clients say their words a certain number of times and then roll across the mat. A lot of them misunderstood and did forward rolls which made me a little nervous.
3. Trapeze Swing Across: Say your word and then swing across into a set of pillows or mats. I’ve tried this with past tense verbs with some success. Give the child the verb (walk). Then have them say, “I will walk” before they are on the swing. While they are swinging, they work on the present progressive forms “I am walking” Finally as they drop into the mats, they say the past tense form. “I walked.”
4. Spin around: Say a certain number of words and then the child gets to spin. Check with your occupational therapist because some children can have adverse reactions to spinning. I sometimes do a similar activity in my office with my office chair with my little guys. I have them hop up and then we get to do a couple of spins on the chair in between repetitions.
5. Scooter Board I add a certain number of cards on each side of the room. The child says the targets and then uses the scooter board to transport them somewhere else in the room. I like picking up different containers for them to put things in. After Easter or Halloween is a great time to stock up on Theme baskets like Spiderman or Angry Birds. It’s probably really helpful when I share THAT tidbit in May. Ned’s head is another really fun container. Work on phrase or sentence level production (in Ned’s nose, I put it in Ned’s ear.)
We had a lot of fun and I ended up with more repetitions than I would typically get during a traditional table top therapy session. Not everyone has access to a gym but I’m curious: Do you incorporate movement into your sessions?
