Accidental Learning!

What in the world is accidental learning?  Well this is a term I like to use for the learning that occurs during play and highly motivating activities.  As I just recently wrote a two part series on incidental teaching, I thought I'd also tackle one of my favorite types of learning that occurs naturally and without much planning.

Accidental learning is just that, it's unplanned.  It occurs spontaneously, most often in play and more often than not as a response to the interest of a student/client.  It happens when I am NOT currently targeting that particular skill, but with a simple model I can see it will benefit the student at hand.  Accidental learning may occur at any time and in any place.  Often times, I must illustrate to parents how they have fostered accidental learning as they feel they are only teaching their child in a structured environment.  Yet, learning is a way of life.  It occurs away from the desks and tables and out of sight of the chalkboards or dry erase boards.

So here are some of my favorite ways to facilitate some "accidental learning":

1.  Grocery Store Shopping:  The produce aisle is one of my FAVORITE places to facilitate accidental learning.  You can talk about so many great cognitive concepts such as colors, shapes, sizes, vegetables vs. fruits, counting and one to one correspondence, number identification on price tags, etc.  So many great concepts can be introduced and over time learned!

2.  Playground:  How great is the playground for accidental learning?  Our children can learn social skills such as taking turns, waiting our turn, waiting in lines (climbing up and down slides), introducing self and asking to join in play, etc.  When watching children play, we can see they are learning how to play cooperatively, follow each other's leads and directions, develop pretend play skills, etc.  Oh what a wonderful place the playground is!  Be sure to help your students or own children if you know they struggle with social skills.  Actually teach them the things to say in real time so they have a memory on which to base the use of particular social skills.

3.  Library:  Oh my goodness, what a TREASURE the public library is!  So many libraries now have children's rooms with developmental toys as well as puppets and books.  They offer great free programs such as story times, STEM educational events, puzzles, writing contests, super hero days, free movies (of which you can always find a book version within the library somewhere), etc.  Some libraries offer free tutoring, e-readers, access to other technology.  Don't discount your library!  You can find information on thousands of topics for your students and own children.  With simple book reading and re-reading your child's vocabulary can grow exponentially!

4.  Busy Bags and Waiting Rooms:  How often do we ask our children to wait?!  In doctors offices, post office lines, restaurants, in traffic, etc.  Sometimes our days are just spent waiting to complete the next errand.  So why not use this time for some great accidental learning?  Have you seen the busy bags ideas that are all over the internet?  If you haven't, here is a link to my pinterest board with several of these great ideas some brilliant mothers and professionals have created.  There are numerous ways to address early cognitive concepts as well as fine motor skills, sensory needs, language concepts, etc.  So MUCH accidental learning can take place simply by making some of these busy bags with objects around your house (and head on over to the dollar store near you b/c you will find some great items to use)!

5.  Family Reading Time:  I know a fellow teacher who has "reading parties" with her own children.  It's a great way to share a book together and is a wonderful way to learn new vocabulary,  learn how to retell a story, and also see how much your children are understanding of what they are hearing by simply asking them questions.  Depending on your children's ages, you can have them either write or draw a synopsis of the book after chapters or at the end of each book.  It's a great way to prepare you children for book reports that will eventually be coming at school!  It is a great activity that can easily be modified to use for middle and high school speech therapy sessions as well for our students who are really struggling with reading comprehension.  What a great way to use academic curriculum!

6.  Pretend play:  Pretend play with your students or own children is a MUST!  What great learning occurs here!  Skills such as communication, social skills, development of narratives, cooperative play, problem solving, etc. will easily develop with little help.  Simply have fun and you will see the learning without much help from you!!!!

Ok, so there you have it!  These are my six (b/c five was too few) favorite ways to facilitate accidental learning!  Feel free to share with parents as you counsel them or find ways to incorporate some of these activities with simple modifications into your therapy sessions.

Do you have a favorite way to facilitate "accidental learning"?  If so, please share below!

Happy Talking!

The Do's and Don'ts of Incidental Teaching!

Last week, I talked a little bit about what incidental teaching is and the steps you can take to implement this technique.  This week let's talk about all the Do's and Don'ts of this strategy.  This is a list of my own tips that I have found to work well.

The "Do's and Don'ts" of Incidental Teaching:

• Keep it as natural an interaction as possible.  Ex. "Oh, I see you looking at Mr. Potato Head.  He is soooo fun!!!!"  Wait for child to request and if no response " Do you want Mr. Potato Head?" Wait for response.  No response "Tell me, 'Head'."  Child responds and you give praise "Oh I heard your voice! Here's Mr. Potato Head."
• DON'T OVERDO IT!  One of the biggest mistakes we as therapists make is over use of a particular technique or strategy.  I typically would only use this technique when child wants to begin a new activity.  I would not hold ALL objects/materials out of reach and have child request EACH piece.  That seems to me to be a bit of overkill and really doesn't represent real life.  A child only has to request at home the things that are out of reach.  Many of his/her toys are within reach, so we want to teach this skill of initiating requests yet maintaining it's natural interaction.
• Keep functional use in mind at all times.  Remember this skill of requesting items out of reach is one that, if used correctly, translates to the home environment for requesting things such as snacks, drinks, toys out of reach/sight, etc.  Generalization can be seen when you train parents to use the same technique at home.
• FOLLOW THE CHILD'S LEAD.  Do not pre-plan that you will be playing with various activities/toys for certain time spans, but follow your student's lead.  Allow him/her to choose the activity from your pre-chosen options.  Give your students' the permission to terminate each activity upon their own choosing.  Do not force more play time if the interest in the activity is no longer there as learning will not occur.  Rather, allow your student to clean up (with your help), then choose the next activity.
• Make incidental teaching a routine.  If you are using this technique, be sure to use it for each therapy session so your students get used to this routine.  Very soon, you will have your students initiating requests without prompts if you dedicate yourself to routine use of this technique.
• Alternate materials to which the child has access.  To keep motivation high, be sure to alternate the toys and other materials you allow your students to have access.  Be sure to have a mix of familiar and unfamiliar/novel materials available.
• When working with a group of students, be sure to teach your students to "take turns" choosing an activity.  This way you can use the technique, while also teaching very important social skills such as turn taking, waiting, etc.

This is a quick and easy list of tips that can be helpful when implementing this technique.  Always remember to have fun and keep it simple.

Happy talking!

Don't Forget Incidental Teaching!

Incidental teaching is defined as creating a highly motivating learning environment by fostering and nurturing our students' interests.  Incidental teaching simply uses developmental activities based on the students' cognitive level.

Incidental teaching is considered part of a behavioral therapy program however you can also see this technique used in relationship models as well.  Relationship models tend to call this technique something similar to "environmental sabotage" or "playful obstruction".  Please note that in relationship models this technique tends to be used in a more naturalistic way rather than part of a structured behavioral approach.  Whatever you choose to call it, this technique can be a very simple and effective approach for speech therapy if used appropriately.

The Steps of Incidental Teaching:

• Arrange the therapy environment so materials are within child's sight (not reach), making it necessary for child to request objects that are highly motivating for him/her.
• Wait for child to initiate engagement.
• Prompt child to respond only as necessary.
• Provide child with access to materials requested when child uses correct response.
• Fade out prompting over time.

Learn more about the "Do's and Don'ts" of Incidental Teaching here.

Shaving cream play...a great way to facilitate language!

During the summer, I had a playgroup at my house and it was ALL about sensory fun!  We had shaving cream EVERYWHERE...

...in our sensory table with some cars...

...in an infant wading pool with some foam blocks...

(As you can see we had some pirates and Frankenstein grace us with their presence at this play date!)

...even in some Tupperware with paintbrushes so the kids could paint on my windows (which of course meant they needed water squirters to clean it off and do it again!!!).  

And oh the wonderful language that was used that day to describe what they were doing, what they were making, and how they were doing it!  

So you all know what this means for my clients don't you?  Some lucky parent will be washing some shaving cream off of their child soon enough...once the weather gets nice again and we can spend some quality time outside!

I have a sneaky suspicion that sensory table with saving cream and cars will show up again...maybe with some laminated stimulus cards hidden in it!  Hmmmm....who knows what else this old brain will think of!  I guess you'll just have to wait and find out come spring and summer.  I'll keep you posted. :)

P.S.  This is what my bathroom looked like that night after cleaning the shaving cream off of ALL the foam blocks!  SO WORTH IT!

Happy Talking!!!

It's the eve of Christmas Eve! Remember to take time to play with your kids over the next few days!

It's the night (well day actually) BEFORE Christmas Eve and as I was going through my plan of "things I need to get done before Christmas morning" I realized NONE of those things involved playing with my son.  At that moment I looked up to see my son holding tight to his new race car, dancing around the living room to Christmas music with his eyes closed.  (He very much loves his new race car which was an early Christmas gift from his Aunt J.)  What an incredible site to see!  It warmed my heart and made me laugh out loud at his innocence and wonder of life!  

What if I hadn't had that thought?  What if I didn't look up at that moment?  I would have missed that beautiful site of my son's pure joy and love of life.  Shame on me for getting so wrapped up in all of the "shoulds", "coulds" and "need to"s of this holiday season rather than living in the moment!  

So, I decided right then and there...what gets done, gets done, what doesn't, doesn't and if someone has a problem with it...frankly, they can keep their opinions to themselves.  Because I will never get today back and if I waste it "doing" and "planning" rather than "listening" and "playing"...then it is my own fault if my life passes before my eyes.

So I've messed up.  I've made the mistake of putting "things" before my family.  I'm not going to beat myself up about it because I'm human.  BUT, I do believe it's never too late to change and I WON'T be making this mistake again (at least not over the next couple of days...bad habits are hard to break, you know!).  Instead, I'm going to play and laugh and learn from my son!  I'm going to watch with wonder as my 2 year old navigates through this Christmas holiday with enthusiasm and a level of excitement that he will not be able to contain within his little body!

The reason I am writing this post is to talk to all of you that are reading this today, parent to parent.  I completely understand the stress and busyness of the holiday season...cooking, cleaning, wrapping, traveling, visiting family and friends.  All of these things are necessary and must be done.  But, if I can impart one very little piece of advice...please, please, don't forget to stop and play with your children this holiday.  Even if its 5 minutes here and there throughout the day when you give your children your undivided attention, it will make a difference for them and for you.  Let's make some wonderful memories this holiday!

Be safe, be silly, and have fun!
Have a Blessed Christmas Holiday!
Happy Talking!

Pretend Play: Choosing Materials to Target Speech & Language Goals!

Pretend play is crucial for a child's cognitive, communication and social  development.  But how can we as SLPs and parents use this activity to target specific language goals?

There are a few rules to follow when using pretend play to target specific goals:

1.  Choose interesting materials:  If your child is not interested in the materials you are presenting for play than they will not want to participate in the play.  So simple to understand, yet sometimes we get caught up in our own ideas and what we think would be fun for our kids, that we miss their signs of disinterest.  So keep your child's likes and dislikes in mind and choose specific materials, dress up clothing and toys that are of interest to your child. (My rule of thumb:  If a child's eyes don't light up when I pull out my materials, I change it up!  I give the child/children a few choices and they tell me what they want to play with).


2.  Choose materials that lend itself to targeting your goals:  For example, if your goal is to increase a child's vocabulary or understanding of categories and you have noticed that he/she does not know the names of many pictured foods or the differences between fruits and vegetables, then playing with fake food would be a great way to target those skills. 

• If your goal is to improve social skills by taking turns, joining in play, sharing, etc. than you want to make sure you DON'T have enough materials for everyone.  This way you create an artificial environment where a child will have to request objects, wait for his turn, take turns with others and learn how to share. 
• If your goal is to improve articulation skills, and your child is working on specific sounds, try to pick several (if not all) toys and materials that have the child's particular sounds in them.  Its a GREAT way to model these sounds in play and possibly encourage generalization of speech production to play (if you child is at that stage). 
• If your child has sensory issues, try to incorporate some of the materials he/she has trouble processing on a TOLERABLE level (low music-if noise is an issue, tactile issues-how about shaving cream, rice, flower, various homemade play doughs, etc. in the sensory table, play with REAL food-if textures are an issue). 
• If your child is working on specific grammatical structures (complete sentences, understanding prepositions, etc.) make sure you create an environment where he/she has the opportunity to use those skills or if he/she cannot do that yet, provide several opportunities where you will model these skills.  E.g.  Your child is working on understanding concept of "where".  You bring out a few play materials and then after some time, misplace one, then "remember" where you misplaced it by giving your child simple directions to "get the (toy) under, in, behind, the...".  E.g. Your child uses only names of objects and you want him/her to create phrases and sentences.  You can put down a few toys and have a clear box/bin out of reach but visual so your child can ask for the toys he/she wants in a sentence (I want the ___) or question (Can I have the ___?) format. 
• If you want different types of sentences using self-talk and parallel talk (see this blog for more details on these skills) is a GREAT way to give your child stimulation and modeling of these skills. 

Just keep your child's strengths and weaknesses in mind and you'll be able to provide just the right about of assistance to make play fun while he/she learns.

3.  Keep track of progress:  This is the MOST difficult thing sometimes for parents and therapists to do.  How do you keep track of all the things a child is saying and doing while playing?  We are going to learn that in the next blog.  Stay tuned!!!

In the meantime...keep playing...and happy talking!!!!