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Here's one (Spring 2008)

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SPEECH & LANGUAGE THERAPY IN PRACTICE SPRING 2008 7

HERE’S ONE I MADE EARLIER

“Here’s one I made earlier...”Alison Roberts with more low-cost, flexible therapy suggestions suitable for a variety of client groups.

Alison Roberts is a speech and language therapist at Ruskin Mill Further Education College in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire.

“A series of games for a group of clients to encourage observation of other people. It is also a good opportunity to practise Makaton or other signs.”

Haven’t you changed!

MATERIALS Big jar (I’ve found that extra large jars of pickled gherkins are quite easy to find. If your therapy room has an unforgiv-ing floor you will need to find a plastic jar instead.) PenSmall pieces of thin, foldable card

••

BRAWN Write words, phrases etc contain-ing your client’s target sound on the cards. Alternatively, if your client is a non-reader draw little pictures, or, if you have them, you could use Widgit symbols.

IN PRACTICE (I) Simply place the folded cards in the jar, put the lid on, and roll it towards your client. They pick out a card and read it / name it.

IN PRACTICE (II) The client makes a sentence containing the ‘jar word’.

MATERIALSAs many battered old toy cars as you can find, the worse their condition the betterOr, and more appropriate for older clients, pictures of real ‘old bangers’ (you can get these from a specialist magazine on stock car racing)Alternatively use other old ve-hicles / pictures such as buses, trains, and motorbikes

IN PRACTICE Ask clients to make up a story to explain the current condition of the car. You can get the ball rolling yourself, for ex-ample describing how a vehicle started life as a family car, and was stolen and used as a geta-way car, or got left in a beach car park when the tide came in. It was later sold to a new driver as a first car, but kept being badly parked, bumping into posts etc. It might even have been taken to a safari park and ‘re-engineered’ by

a monkey. Finally, you can decide and describe the fate of the car, perhaps to start a new life, after being repaired and repainted, or to be crushed and made into saucepans! Try to end the car’s ‘life’ on a reasonably positive note.

MATERIALSScarves, hats, glasses, jackets and so on for versions I and II

There are several, progressively harder, ways to approach this.

IN PRACTICE (I) You must have the change items outside the room. One of the clients is scrutinised by the oth-ers, goes out, puts on a hat, or a pair of glasses, returns to the room, and the others say what has changed.

IN PRACTICE (II) A client goes out of the room while someone left inside changes something about themselves, such as putting on a jacket, with the others in the group remaining neutral. The other client returns and examines those already in the room, selecting the ‘changer’.

IN PRACTICE (III) A client goes out of the room and the others decide on a facial expression, a Makaton sign, or a way of sitting, for example

•with arms or legs crossed. They are all doing this action when the client returns for a short while to look at them, but nothing is said. Now the client goes out again, and the group adopts a different facial expression, Makaton sign, or pose, and when the client re-enters s/he must state what is different about the group.

IN PRACTICE (IV) A still more diffi-cult version is a new take on a par-lour game. One person exits, and the others decide on an overt ac-tion and a covert action. The overt action could be to pass around something like an open or closed book, but covertly the action is sit-ting with the legs either apart or to-gether. When the person re-enters the room s/he sits down with the group, and tries to join in with the group’s activity. The first one in the group (one who is in on the secret) states “I pass on this book open”, or, “I pass on this book closed”. The book will be randomly open or closed;

it is the position of the legs that goes with the words. The one who is excluded from the Secret tries to work out what the covert posture is. Another statement could be “I pass on these scissors crossed”, or “I pass on these scissors uncrossed”; again that would happen randomly; it would be the legs that are crossed or uncrossed. You could try “I pass on this tea towel folded” or “I pass on this tea towel unfolded”, when it would actually be the arms that are folded or not. (Passing the towel on with folded arms is possible to do!) Or try “I pass on this pencil upright/ leaning”, but it would really be your posture that is upright, or inclin-ing slightly to one side. Then there could be “I pass on this pen pointing up/down”, and with the other hand slightly point up or down. Your own or your clients’ imaginations will suggest more of these; all you have to remember is that you need a statement which can apply both to an object and a bodily action.

“This is a fun addition to your phonological mate-rials. You can use it as a one to one activity, or in a group.”

Phonbola

“This is a lateral thinking activity for a group of fairly able children or young teen-agers. It also helps to develop narrative skills. The idea is to explain how the cars could have got into such a state. Extra praise should be given for the funniest or most outlandish ideas.”

Life of Riley