Besides helping children learn how to develop better communication skills, one of the best things about being a Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist/Therapist is that you get to play with kids...a lot. While adults tend to caught up in the unfortunate idea that work and play are totally separate concepts, we often forget that play is how children develop and learn, and that play is indeed a child's 'job'. Making your speech-language therapy fun and playful not only helps your young patients learn more quickly and easily, but it makes your own daily job so much more fun, too!
Transforming speech therapy into games and play provides a setting for practicing appropriate interaction skills, pragmatics, sportsmanship and cooperation. Developmentally appropriate games are invaluable tools for shaping the growth of the child's developing brain, which includes the healthy development of language skills. Fortunately, the modern therapist does not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to products that can help enhance her speech-language practice, as input from other therapists have contributed to the creation of helpful and innovative tools that add the ever important ingredient of fun to speech-language therapy.
The Pop-It Speech Therapists Tool Kit comes complete in a clear, travel-sized vinyl bag, making it easy to take this kit with you to any of your home or school visits. Featuring all of the basic tools any SLP should have, this kit highlights a collapsible stand that will support a magnet board, mirror, assessment manuals, large cards and other papers you use in your therapy. Also included is a non-breakable, free standing mirror that has a magnet so you can also attach it to steel surfaces, and a magnet board with a dry-erase writing surface that includes a dry-erase marker and eraser.
This tool kit can be incorporated into your practice in a variety of ways...your imagination is the only limit! Kids tend to love the mirror therapy, learning how to correctly form their mouths and tongues to be able to form words and sounds correctly, and many games can be used with this kind of therapy. You can also find colorful magnet letters and numbers to use on the magnet board to teach language skills in some fun and inventive ways that really capture the child's attention. Use the dry-erase feature by drawing simple pictures and making a game out of practicing naming these objects out loud. The stand can be used to display books that the child or therapist reads from, or for naming objects on large cards.
It has been said that play is the only way that the higher intelligence of man can unfold, and this has certainly never been more true than it is for the speech-language pathologist and her pediatric patient. Play opens up pathways in the brain that lead to better learning abilities and retention of knowledge. The more you infuse your SLP practice with fun, the more your own imagination will soar and you will most likely find more insightful and interesting ways to engage your young patients as well. As the great educator of love, Leo Buscaglia, once said, "It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them."
Carol Koenigsknecht,
and
Hulet Smith, OT
