Speech Therapy At Home: A Minimalist Approach

I've experimented with several approaches to home therapy. We've done 30 minutes sessions five times a week in addition to the therapy services Ava was receiving elsewhere. That was intense and a schedule that was hard to maintain even when the children were only in daycare two mornings a week.

We tried doing a 15-20 minute therapy session nightly after dinner. That was working well at least 3 days a week until summertime hit and our schedule was less regular. Then sessions dropped to once a week and then we got distracted all together.

When fall approached, Ava was switching from daycare two mornings a week to preschool five mornings a week. She was also starting her speech group again twice a week for 45 minutes after the summer break. I decided to postpone home sessions until we settled into our school-year schedule.

Things are finally calming down. Ava has transitioned well to preschool. She's doing fine in her speech group twice a week. Her speech group is wonderful. They have a group for preschool-aged speech-only children. The therapists use a cycles approach working on each sound for a week or two before moving on to another sound. After moving through all the targeted sounds they begin the cycle again. Ava has a somewhat unique spectrum of speech sounds she has vs. has not acquired though. She has (with the exception of /sk/) pretty much mastered the /s/-blends. /s/-blends are typically a sound most preschool children need to address, so the group spends quite a few consecutive sessions on /s/-blends Ava already knows. Therefore, I am feeling the need to supplement at home again.

I don't want to overwhelm her though. Already her schedule is at least three times as busy as it has ever been. So I'm taking a minimalist approach to home therapy right now. I've taken a card deck upstairs to her bedroom. Usually we do final /k/, but right now her speech group is working on /sk/ so I'm switching to /sk/ this week (extensive /s/-blend sets are currently available in the Testy Shop).

I keep the deck on her bedside table and we practice the deck before nap and again before bed. It takes no more than 5-7 minutes to do a speed drill consisting of at least 50 productions. I can tell she's fatiguing near the end of the 59 card final /k/ deck (coming soon in the Testy Shop) because she's at 90% accuracy for the first 20 and down to more like 30% accuracy by the final 20).

I like this approach. It meets the two essential criteria for getting it done in our house.

• It is quick.
• It is built into our routines (before bed and nap) in a hard to forget way.
• As a bonus, it is heavily focused on child productions which is essential for progress with motor-speech problems.

Isolation "Race to the Top" Game: Simple DIY

Race to the Top Game - Simple Isolation Practice

Preparation

Take a piece of paper, marker, die, and some stickers. Download and print my sample below if you happen to want to practice /t/ and /k/. (I have a child who substitutes /t/ for /k/ and so practicing those two sounds together is a great exercise.) Otherwise, use the paper and marker to make your own game sheet with whatever sounds you need to practice. Write one sound on three stickers and the other sound on three more stickers and stick onto a die. Put the die into a small container with a lid to allow kids to shake without chasing it all over the room.

Play

Have the child shake the die. Mark whichever letter comes up after the child makes the sound. If you have a young child, have them color the letter or place a sticker on it. An older child can trace the letter. Then roll again. Whichever "tower" is completed first "wins" the game.

Variations

• Have the child make the sound 3-5 times in succession before marking that sound off in the tower.
• Have the child think of a word that starts with the sound.
• Have the child think of a word that ends with the sound.
• Provide the child with an initial or final word and have them use it in a phrase or sentence.

(Inspired by this post.)

Review: VAST iPhone / iPad Therapy Apps by Speak in Motion

Speak in Motion provided me with complementary copies of the VAST Songs 1 - Intro app and the VAST Autism 1 - Core app for review.

The VAST Song 1 - Intro app and the VAST Autism 1 - Core app are very different from the typical speech therapy apps. They do not focus on specific sounds. Their target audience is functioning at a nonverbal or minimally verbal level. These are the apps you're going to want to reach for when you have a student who is not responding to traditional speech therapy methods. Specific populations that come to mind are children with Autism, children with severe Childhood Apraxia of Speech, and children with TBI affecting speech.

VAST Autism 1 - Core iPhone / iPad App

The VAST Autism app is focused on practicing functional spoken scripts at syllable, simple word, multi-syllable word, phrase, and sentence levels. Once you choose the level appropriate for the child you are working with, you choose the specific script you want the child to learn. Then the child begins by simply watching and listening to a close-up video of an adult speaking that script slowly and clearly (yet with fairly natural intonation).

The videos stimulate both auditory and visual pathways in the brain. They also allow for simultaneous production which is known to stimulate speech production. The slightly slower production paired with relatively natural intonation also helps facilitate success. The app includes good choices of stimuli. For example, the syllable level includes: mama, papa, moo moo, boo boo, baa baa, beep beep, peep peep, da da, pop pop, la la, Weeee, and Ooooo. These are nice, simple reduplicated syllables using simple consonants and vowels. The levels progess logically from simple reduplicated syllables, to one-syllable words, multi-syllable words, phrases, and then sentences. As the productions get more complex, the stimuli choices focus on functional scripts. For example, some of the sentence level stimuli are: " I need to use the bathroom.", "I am thirsty.", "I am hungry.", and "I need a break.".

Bottom Line

This is an app that consists entirely of carefully chosen stimulus videos. It is accessibly priced at $4.99. If you work with students who are minimally verbal and are not yet responding to therapy targeting specific phonemes this app might be very useful for you. If you do not have any non-verbal or minimally verbal children on your caseload you would probably find little use for this app.

VAST Songs 1 - Intro iPhone / iPad App

The VAST Songs app is a set of videos that show a close-up of either a male of female singer singing one of 10 songs. These videos are useful during therapy because they provide both auditory and visual stimuli and they also stimulate the pathways in the brain involved in music. Research has shown that the rhythm and melody involved in music can often help stimulate speech production. Alternately, they could be used during carryover practice in more traditional articulation therapy (Yankee Doodle for /k/, for example.)

Bottom Line

This is an app that consists entirely of carefully chosen stimulus videos. It is accessibly priced at $4.99. If you work with students who are minimally verbal and are not yet responding to therapy targeting specific phonemes this app might be very useful for you. It might also provide a creative way of working on specific phoneme carryover with other young clients. If you are not working with severely speech delayed children, you might be better off finding a different app for your needs.