What's New at Speech2U: June Edition

Last month I decided to do one MEGAPOST per month on new products that I have at my TPT and Teacher's Notebook stores.

All Products are listed on Facebook and are on sale for up to 50% off for the first two days that I list a product on TPT.  You can like my page of Facebook so that you don't miss any good sales!  

The rest of the posts for the months will be therapy activities, some reviews of other products and how I used them, silly stories, my Mom-on-day challenges etc.  Let me know if you like this or if you prefer to hear about products in individual posts!

Stack the Sandwiches: A category matching game

This is a quick, fun game to reinforce categorization skills.  It's played similar to speed.  Students flip cards and match them onto the categories.  In order to win the completed sandwich, they need to state 2 more members in the category.  Categories include: Sea animals, farm animals, jungle animals, pets, water vehicles, road vehicles, air vehicles, fruits, vegetables, art supplies, toys, tools, and furniture.

Pack Your Bags Articulation Vacation:  

This is another quick, fun game to play.  I have packets for Velars, Bilabials, and Alveolars.  Each activity has more than 100 pictures included focusing on sounds in all positions.  The game is played similar to "I'm going to Grandma's and I'm bringing...." It's great for carryover.  Ideas for movement are also included!  

Stoplight Emotions

I work with a lot of kids with emotional behavioral disorders or who are on the Autism Spectrum.  My husband did all of the illustrations for the characters.  Check out his AMAZING work here. I really like that it is more diverse as it is sometimes hard to get those materials through regular clip art providers.  This packet includes games and activity ideas to teach emotions, different levels of emotions (synonyms for happy, mad, sad, scared) and teaching cards focused on what each emotion feels like broken down by body part.  (I'm hoping that this becomes a best seller because then I can convince him to do some more illustrations for some emotions and problem solving activities that I want to add...)

Don't be a Zombie: Pragmatic/Nonverbal Language Skills

Most of my clients like the Plants vs. Zombies game.  I thought these zombies were cute enough that you could use them at school but still motivating for my kiddoes.  All of the activities focus on pragmatic language and nonverbal language including: Personal space, Personal Hygiene, Tone of Voice and Nonverbal gestures.

Interactive Flashcards: Inference Riddles:

I'm really, really loving using these "interactive" flashcards with my students who need more visuals to complete these higher functioning language tasks.  I use inference riddles a lot but most of the activities I had either had 2-3 of the same pictures allowing the child to memorize the card OR had the picture of the object ON the card which limited my ability to use visuals to help them answer the questions.  With this activity, you can also work on teaching kids how to use deductive reasoning to determine the answers.

Do you have a favorite among these?  Enter to win a copy of your choice below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Autism: Eye Contact

April is Autism Awareness Month and April 2nd is World Autism Day.  I'm lighting it up blue by changing my font color for the day.   According to Autism Speaks, the prevalence of Autism has now increased to 1 in 88 children.  Autism is more common in boys.  For boys, the prevalence is 1 in 54.  That number is staggering to me.  Back when I went to school, I had a one day lecture on how to treat Autism.  Since then I have worked with lots of children who are on the Autism Spectrum.  

For April, I thought I would spend some time talking about my favorite goal areas for my clients who have been diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum.  

Eye Contact

When I first started working with individuals with Autism, I remember writing goals along the lines of "Johnny will maintain eye contact for a 2 minute period."  Apparently, my long term goal involved creating some type of stalker.  Two minutes is an extraordinarily long time to try to maintain steady eye contact.  If you don't believe me, try maintaining eye contact with someone on a city bus for 2 minutes.

Then I heard Temple Grandin speak.  She talked about how it can be very difficult for her to listen and look at someone at the same time.  It becomes too difficult to combine the information from auditory and visual information. 

SO I started teaching my clients to look at someone's nose when they are talking to them.  My clients would still be looking towards the person but they wouldn't have to try to process the visual and auditory information at the same time.  Brilliant, I thought to myself.  

Well, not quite.  I went to one of Jill Kuzma's courses where she talked about how she teaches her students to identify emotions by breaking it down into individual parts (what do angry eyebrows look like.)  Ruh-roh.  Based on that lecture, I realized that noses give very little information related to emotions, thoughts or intentions.  

Most of my early goals in eye contact were directed more for the listener's comfort than for any consistent benefit to my clients.  If eye contact is so difficult, maybe we should just stop working on it.  

There's an app for everything and there is even an app for Eye contact.  I'd be curious to hear from someone if this app results in increased eye contact across environments.  I'm skeptical that training children to look into the eyes of an image on a computer screen would translate into benefits in real life.  Especially since it seems part of the difficulty with eye contact is the ability to process the visual information with the auditory information.  Also, the eyes of the people on the app change into numbers.  (this is how they track whether or not the student was looking in the eyes of the person talking.)

After taking some introductory courses in RDI (Relationship Development Intervention)  and Social Thinking, I've changed my strategy for eye contact.  My goals now are to help the child understand WHY they need to check in.  

My favorite way to do this is through Yes/No Games.  

  

Yes/No games are a variation of an "I lost my voice" activity that is described in some of my RDI books.  Basically you just stop answering questions verbally.  Now the child has to LOOK at you to determine if the answer is yes or no.  

• Big clear head shakes maybe by mouthing yes/no.
• Decrease to subtle head shakes
• Work on the eyes or facial expressions-look mad or irritated when the answer is no.
• Eyes only.  Try to communicate yes/no with only your eyes.  

Fun Yes/No games include: 

• Treasure Hunts: (They have to check in with you to see if they are going the right way)  
• Races:  (You let them know when it's time to GO by your expressions)
• Ball Toss Games:  (No throwing until I say yes with my eyes)
• Games like Cranium Cariboo:  (The child checks in to see if they should open that box.)  

Autism Games is a blog that was run by Tahirih Bushey.  It isn't being updated anymore but it is worth some serious blog stalking if you work with children on the Autism Spectrum.