Structured Teaching Activities for Christmas for Toddlers…FREE ONE HOUR CE COURSE

Structured Teaching Activities for Christmas for Toddlers...FREE ONE HOUR CE COURSE Course Description

ASHA FILING is not available for this course, but you can still immediately generate a certificate to use for ASHA maintenance, licensure, or credentialing.

This 53-minute video is designed to teach 12 simple cognitive activities or “tasks” to toddlers and young children to help them learn to attend, participate, and finish an entire task through early structured learning opportunities.

Because this is a Christmas series, we’re using the 12 Days of Christmas for inspiration. You’ll see 12 different activities you can easily develop to use with your little clients if you’re a therapist or your own child if you’re a parent.

This material is ideal for committed parents, therapists, and other professionals who work with young children with language and other developmental delays.

In addition to the 53-minute video, you’ll receive a 14 page written summary with a list of easily obtainable materials, set up directions, and detailed instructions for making these activities productive learning opportunities for both the child and you!

If you’re a therapist, the activities are written in an easy-to-follow “homework” format, perfect for providing parents for education and suggestions for home practice.

Troubleshooting tips are included in case a child is having difficulty learning or completing the task.

Don’t spend hours searching the internet for ideas that might work for helping toddlers with significant delays learn to complete early learning tasks. The activities and instructions are right here! Lots of mommy bloggers have written cute ideas on their websites or on Pinterest for similar activities, but many times the directions for introducing and carrying out the tasks are not specified. The activities certainly aren’t modified for toddlers and young preschoolers with developmental delays. This video will make these activities applicable for ALL young children.

So many of our little friends with language delays have a hard time paying attention, participating in therapy activities and completing an entire task, even when it’s playing with a toy. By beginning to work with these kinds of kids with short, simple cognitive activities, we’ll help these toddlers build attention and learn to complete an entire activity start to finish.

When we use activities that are highly visual, rather than language-based, we’ll also be playing to a child’s strengths rather than his weaknesses.

This is the starting point for therapy for many children with autism. You’ll get better initial participation with these activities than with anything else you may try. You’ll also be establishing great activities for a home therapy program.

Typically developing toddlers also love these activities. By introducing these tasks in a structured way, we’re helping ALL children learn important cognitive concepts which will lay the foundation for early academic skills and for learning the language. In all of the activities you’ll also be targeting fine motor and motor planning skills, so our colleagues who are OTs love these ideas too.

For more background information about why these tasks are used in therapy, take a look at the Resources and References page at the end of the written therapy guide.

As a therapist, you can make many of these things this year and then save them to use every December for the rest of your career. Once you learn the basic premise for developing these activities, you’ll also be able to take the ideas and design your own activities to use throughout the year.

As a parent, you will be able to make these activities yourself to do with your own child during your 1:1 time at home. Many children can learn to be independent of these activities. Eventually, you can bring these games out when you need your child to be able to play on his own for a few minutes.

Many therapy programs for children with autism such as TEACCH and preschool methodologies such as Montessori and Reggio Emilia programs use these kinds of tasks to teach a child to become independent during learning activities. However, adult intervention is absolutely essential at the beginning to help a toddler with developmental delays learn what to do and be able to get through an entire task. All of the instructions for teaching young children are provided at an introductory level in the video and in the written therapy guide. Strategies are also included for helping move a child toward independent use of the task over time.

Suggestions for adapting these materials to use throughout the year are listed for all 12 activities.