I’ve pinned and pinned and pinned TONS of articles and websites on Pinterest!

Take a peak or browse for hours!

Find it here:

http://pinterest.com/teachmetotalk/boards/

Here’s a 2 minute preview:

Click the link below for more information: 
http://myei2.com/2013/04/26/sensory-bottles-therapy-guide/

The video can be purchased for $11.99 and viewed immediately online using the link above, or it’s available on DVD from our online store at www.shop.teachmetotalk.com. Click Sensory Bottles Therapy Guide to purchase.

Kelly will be sharing ways to help a toddler learn body parts, make choices, and sequence steps in an activity all with STICKERS! Click the link for some cute ideas…. (and a great song!)  

Assessment tools used by pediatric speech-language pathologists include the following age ranges for this early skill:

• Points to two different body parts by 12 months
• Identifies at least 6 different parts and/or clothing items on himself or a doll by 18 months

Parents often begin by trying to teach a child facial body parts, usually eyes, nose, and mouth, and all at the same time! It’s no wonder that many children with developmental delays mix these up!

I recommend to parents that we begin with body parts that are relatively far away from each other, and include at least a couple the toddler can see!

I teach belly (or tummy), toes, and hair first, and in that order.

To make this more fun, turn this activity into a little game. When the toddler is on her back, use your voice to build anticipation as you say, “Where’s your belly? I’m gonna get your belly! Show me your belly!” If she likes tickling, quickly tickle her stomach as you say, ”Belly! I got your belly! There’s your belly! Belly!”

When she’s consistently reaching for her belly as you play this game, you’ll know she’s understood.

Only then should you move on and teach a new body part. 

I also suggest to parents that they focus on helping a child learn to point to body parts on his or her own body, rather than teaching the body part on the adult. Many times toddlers, particularly those with developmental language lags, aren’t able to generalize this skill. A young child may grab mom’s nose when mom says, “Nose,” but not point to her own nose when asked, “Where’s your nose?” 

Another important way to help a child learn body parts is to PRACTICE. When a toddler is having difficulty learning to understand and use words, repetition is critical to make sure that a child is exposed to new words and concepts many, many times throughout a day and throughout the week. Working on learning to point to a body part during a weekly therapy session or even once a day at bathtime may not be enough to help a young child learn to respond.

At home parents can faithfully label body parts and clothing items during baths, diaper changes, and while getting dressed.  These events are predictable and occur over and over in a toddler’s life, making them the perfect times to naturally work in these kinds of words. Helping busy parents incorporate language into their daily routines improves the likelihood that moms and dads connect with a child and remember to target new words during these mundane tasks.    

When a child has mastered pointing to belly, toes, and hair, select the next body parts to learn based on what a child likes to do. For a child who likes to clap, teach hands. When a child frequently mouths toys, teach mouth or teeth.

Make learning body parts as fun and interactive as you can. Teach eyes by blinking yours, and help a child learn to blink his own eyes. Pretend to sneeze, snort, or snore when you’re teaching nose. Teasingly act like you’re going to eat his feet when you’re teaching toes.

These strategies also help a young child learn how to imitate your actions, a very important precursor to imitating words.

If you’re using a body parts book, a baby doll, or a puzzle to help a child learn body parts, make sure that you’re also pointing out the REAL body part on the child and on yourself! Even when you’re using a mirror, be sure the child finds the body part on his or her own little body too. Since that’s how the skill is measured, that’s how we should teach it!

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For more ideas for helping a child learn early language milestones, take a look at my book Teach Me To Talk: The Therapy Manual!  

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Within 72 hours of a course an attendee must notify us of dissatifaction with the event. If a mutually agreed upon solution cannot be reached, a refund less a $20 administration fee will be issued within 72 hours in the method the registration was paid. Email questions to Johnny@teachmetotalk.com.  

 
Speaker Disclosure: 

Financial – Laura Mize owns teachmetotalk.com and therefore receives a salary, compensation for speaking, and royalties from teachmetotalk.com product sales.

Nonfinancial - Laura Mize has no other financial or nonfinancial relationships with any of the other authors, publishers, or SLPs whose work she regularly recommends via CE events, website posts, or her podcast.

Learning to play a social game like Peek-a-boo is CRITICAL first step in helping a child learn to understand and use words.

Click here for the article I posted earlier this week listed step-by-step instructions for teaching a child to play Peek-a-boo.  

Here’s a link to an article with even more ideas for Social Games.

For dozens of games and songs with goals and written in a “homework” format for parents, check out Teach Me To Play WITH You.

A mom may have instigated peek-a-boo a few times to try to quiet her fussy baby, but when her child didn’t seem to understand or respond, she assumed he didn’t like it and then she stopped trying. No one likes to do something when they think they’re not good at it…  

Helping a young child learn to play WITH an adult is a huge first step in helping him learn how to communicate. ALL communication begins with social interaction. Learning to play social games, like peek-a-boo, is the easiest and earliest phase of social interaction and engagement as a child begins to pay attention to and respond to others. Once a child learns to enjoy being with another person, he forms the foundation necessary to help him understand and use language.  

Many professionals have written extensively about using relationships and emotional connections as the underlying theory in the treatment of children with social communication delays. This focus is exactly where “speech therapy” should begin for many toddlers. 

In my practice as a speech-language pathologist who specializes in infants and toddlers, I spend as much time working with parents as I do children!

As early interventionists, we should use early therapy sessions to teach parents HOW to play these games with their own children. We do this first by modeling how to play the game with the child demonstrating the strategies we use to help a child learn to participate. We invite parents to play along too, so that they are comfortable. We show them how to read a child’s cues and adapt the game to meet the child where he or she is developmentally building on each tiny success. Finally, we coach parents to reinforce a child’s attempts so that they can continue to play together long after the therapy session is over.  

Let me give you an example…

I teach parents to approach a game like peek-a-boo with several different steps, or goals, we want a child to achieve. In sessions, I don’t leave the way a parent plays to chance. I tell them specifically how we’re going to set up the game so that a child can learn to do one small part and then gradually add another small part until he or she is participating in (and loving!) an entire game.  

This is how the game peek-a-boo is written in my therapy manual Teach Me to Play WITH You and it’s EXACTLY how I teach parents to play when I’m treating their child. Again, I provide detailed instructions so there are no lingering doubts about what goals we’re addressing, or even how  we play.

PEEK-A-BOO (excerpt from Teach Me To Play WITH You)

How to Play:

Cover your child’s head with a blanket and then ask, “Where’s _____?” Ask several times and build anticipation with your voice.

Jerk the blanket off with a big gesture and say, “Boo!”  Specifically say, “Boo,” rather than “Peek-a-boo,” “Pee-pie,” or even, “There she is,” because “Boo” is a word your toddler is more likely to be able to say.

Child’s Goals:

Watch his responses. We want him to connect with you by looking at you, smiling, and laughing when you remove the blanket. If he doesn’t laugh, be more fun! Smile bigger! Squeal! Increase your own level of energy, animation, and excitement. Try a tickle or jiggle to get him going. 

After a while, we want her to move or giggle in anticipation that you are going to take the blanket off her head.

Next we want him to try to remove the blanket by himself. Help him if he gets stuck. 

After a few days playing this game, we want her to try to cover her own head when you give her the blanket to begin the game.

You can help him learn to initiate the game by saying, “Where’s _____” when his head is even partially covered with a blanket at other times during the day.

An indication that he’s really “learned” the game comes when he initiates the game with you by reaching out on his own to get a blanket and then covering and uncovering himself. Place a blanket in front of him and ask, “Play boo?” If he doesn’t pick it up, point to the blanket so that he learns to get the blanket by himself to begin the game.

Toddlers learn through repetition. Young children with difficulty paying attention need even more repetition. Play this game over and over throughout the day with several repetitions each time so that he “learns” the game.

Saying “Boo” might not come right away, but if she’s doing all of the other parts, we know she’s understanding the routine, with or without the word. Keep trying to elicit this word by saying, “Boo” many times during play to help her learn to imitate you. Once you’ve played this game many times for several days, pause just before you say, “Boo!” Smile and look expectantly at your child as if to indicate that it’s her turn to say “Boo!” Since you’ve played this game many, many times now and she knows what comes next, your child may surprise you and say it on her own!  

As with all of our play routines, eventually your child should play this game several times in a row before moving on to another game or toy with you during your 1:1 play time.

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When we’ve established this game during sessions and parents report success with the basic routine at home, I make sure to give them great ideas for how to use this game in other ways. Therapists call this process ”carry over” and it’s very important that we address carry over with each new skill and activity.  

So for a game like Peek-a-boo, here’s how carry over looks:

Ways to Expand the Game: 

1. Hide under the blanket, and let your child take the blanket off your head. Say, “Where’s Mommy?” If your child doesn’t try to uncover you, uncover yourself. Better yet, have someone else help your child take the blanket off your head to teach him that he can do this part of the game.                                       

2. Get a new person to play either role by being the person who hides or calls the child as he hides.

3. Play with another obstacle. Hide behind a pillow, a door, behind the shower curtain during bath, or behind the couch when your child is playing nearby. Call your child as you did before saying, “Where’s ____?” Or ask your child, “Where’s Mommy?” Then pop out and say, “Boo!”

4. When your child masters this game and can cover and uncover her own head easily, introduce the next activity, “Where Oh Where.”

By teaching a parent why and how to play these kinds of games, we exponentially increase therapy time for a child, and that’s when real progress occurs!

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If you need more help using and teaching early and easy social routines, I’ve written the instructions for most of the games I routinely use in speech therapy sessions in my therapy manual Teach Me To Play WITH You. For more information about this book, click here.  

When you buy all 3 of my therapy manuals, Teach Me To Play WITH You, Teach Me To Talk: The Therapy Manual, and Building Verbal Imitation in Toddlers, you’ll receive my best selling Creating Verbal Routines Therapy Guide for FREE.

Here’s a brief description of each of the therapy manuals:

Teach Me To Play WITH You is a therapy manual written for parents working with young children who have difficulty interacting socially with others. Instructions are included for beginning play with developmentally-appropriate activities using simple games and toys that are readily available in most homes. There are separate chapters with explicit directions, words, and hand motions for many familiar finger plays and traditional childhood songs. Activities are written so that professionals can copy pages of a specific activity, complete the activity during a session, and share the copy with parents with “homework.” The final chapter explains approximately 20 different common problems related to sensory processing issues that we see interfere with a child’s ability to engage others along with multiple strategies for addressing these challenges during play at home. (Regular price is $48) 

Teach Me To Talk: The Therapy Manual is written specifically for speech-language pathologists and other early intervention professionals who work with young children birth to 4 with receptive and expressive language delays and disorders. Because this project was written for professionals, it may not be as family-friendly as other teachmetotalk.com products, but many committed mothers report that this manual gave them more direction and specific instructions for what to work on at home than any other resource they’ve used. This manual is especially helpful for goal writing and for designing fun and developmentally-appropriate treatment activities for toddlers and young children functioning from the 6-9 month developmental level up to the 48 month developmental level. It’s the ultimate “how to” tool for working with infants and toddlers with language delays. (Regular price is $54)

Building Verbal Imitation in Toddlers - Learn the 8 levels of teaching a late talker to learn to imitate. Many times parents and therapists don’t see success with late talking toddlers because the adult isn’t working on the right things. The child actually needs to learn several “in between” steps before he’s ready to begin to imiate words and learn to talk. This simple, straight-forward approach is evidenced based and easy for both parents and therapists to understand and implement during familiar play-based activities and daily routines. (Regular price is $48)

Buy all 3 and receive my Creating Verbal Routines Therapy Guide for FREE! Here’s the link to that post on my new website www.myei2.com.

To purchase, choose Therapy Manual Combo Pack SPECIAL here at www.shop.teachmetotalk.com.

Select Therapy Manual Combo Pack SPECIAL in our online store at www.shop.teachmetotalk.com.  

Until 2/11/13 this Therapy Guide is only $9.99!

After that day, the price returns to the regular price of $19.99.

You’ll receive an access code to a watch a 53 minute video and a 12 page written summary. Don’t miss this special sale!

Here’s the preview:

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Simple visual, cognitive activities are where we should begin therapy for many toddlers with developmental delays, including those with autism or suspected autism. We’ll often elicit better initial participation with these kinds of activities than anything else we try.

Learn how to design these tasks to use now and throughout the year to help a child learn to pay attention, participate, and complete an entire activity start to finish.

Therapy Guides are an easy alternative for learning how to work with toddlers. There’s no waiting days for a package to be delivered!

Within 12 hours (sooner during business hours!) you’ll receive an email with the written Therapy Guide as a pdf and a password for viewing the video at vimeo.com. (You do not need a Vimeo account to view the video.)

If you have questions or have any difficulty please email me at Laura@teachmetotalk.com.

Order the Entire Collection from teachmetotalk.com and receive my new Winter Therapy Guide (a 60 minute downloadable video and 22 page pdf) for FREE.

As an additional bonus, residents in the USA will receive free shipping!

If you’re ordering from outside the USA, select Entire Collection so that shipping charges will be applied and then I’ll still send you the Winter Therapy Guide as my gift to you.

Pick Valentine’s Deal in our online store at www.shop.teachmetotalk.com.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at Laura@teachmetotalk.com.