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!

Replacing Undesirable Behaviors

When consulting with a mother of a child with Down Syndrome, she confided that she struggles with a very undesirable behavior the child exhibits.  He tends to scream at the top of his lungs in quiet places.  Therefore, taking her son to places such as the local library, her church, a restaurant or even a grocery store can be a very difficult trip for her.  I introduced her to the idea of replacing the undesirable behavior with something more socially appropriate.  But how do we do this?

Here are my basic rules when attempting to replace an undesirable behavior:

1.  Find a behavior the child can already do.  When replacing an undesirable behavior with something more socially appropriate, we do not want to spend time on trying to TEACH a new behavior if we have a perfectly acceptable behavior in something the child can already do.

For example, when I worked in the school setting, I had several PK students who wanted to climb on, hug or cuddle with teachers.  Although a hug here and there is necessary and a great way to boost our little ones confidences, we must remember that there are certain times when this behavior just isn't acceptable.  Circle time just doesn't work if everyone in the PK classroom wants to sit in the teacher's lap.  So we attempted to replace this behavior with a quick "compliment and high five".  This way each child was given individualized attention. The teacher or myself told each student something we really liked about their behavior that day (e.x. "Johnny, I really loved how you helped clean up the books earlier!") and they still received some physical contact with a "high five" before they were asked to sit on the floor.  We began with something the students could do without spending valuable time teaching a new behavior.


2.  Find something that motivates the child.  Again, remember your goal is just to eliminate the undesirable behavior as quickly as possible.  So to do this, we must find something that is MORE motivating than the current behavior.  If this replacement behavior is NOT more motivating, than it will NOT stick!  So really watch your students, know what makes them tick, and see what puts that light of excitement into their eyes.

For the little child with Down Syndrome above, he delighted in hearing his voice echo in quiet places.  He also enjoyed the attention his mother gave him after each scream when she looked at him and told him "sh" or "no".  So I noticed that he could use a pincer grasp to hold on to items AND he liked cool sounds.  Therefore, I suggested his mother get him a quiet book with LOTs of pictures to pull from velcro patches.  Each time he pulled a picture off the velcro, she was to give him quiet praise to feed his desire for parental attention.  The fun velcro sound would still delight him, while it was much quieter than his screams.  In addition, simple books such at these never run out of fun because you can simply return all the pictures to their velcro patches and he can begin again.

3.  Practice before "game day".  We know practice makes perfect but we are not trying to be perfect here.  We are just trying to replace a undesirable behavior with something a bit more socially acceptable.  As a child ages we can shape these behaviors into the "desired" behavior, the ultimate goal.  Yet in the meantime, an acceptable behavior will do.  But we cannot expect our children to be ready to substitute these behaviors if we do not practice them.  Practice your replacement behavior when is it not needed and your student will know how to perform them when it is.

For our little guy, practicing his quiet book at home for a few minutes a day, helps prepare him for his next library trip.

4.  You may need an external motivator.  Remember when working with cognitively delayed children you may realize, during your practice sessions, that the replacement behavior is NOT motivating enough.  However, if you couple that replacement behavior with an external motivator (E.x. Your student pulls all pictures off the velcro patches of a quite book then receives one goldfish as a snack), you may have a very compliant student on your hands.

5.  Over time fade out external motivators and/or find new replacement behaviors that are closer to desired behavior.  Over time you can begin to fade out your external motivator by providing them less often and inconsistently.  You can also spend time creating a repertoire of various socially appropriate replacement behaviors to keep interest and motivation high.  In addition, you can think about ways to shape these replacement behaviors to get the child to exhibit behavior closer and closer to the ultimately desired behavior.

For example, with our little guy who loves to scream, once we replace the screaming with quiet books and possible snacks, we may want to shape this behavior to using the quiet book independently in his own chair, rather than while being held by mom.  We may eventually want to practice using these replacement behavior for longer and longer periods of time at the local library, church or restaurant.  See how long we can extend the use of the replacement behaviors before the child looses attention or motivation.  The longer we extend the behaviors and the more we increase the independence with which a child uses the replacement behavior, the closer we will come to the desired behavior.

So these are my basic rules for replacement behaviors.  Remember it may take some trial and error before you find that one thing your student enjoys doing enough to replace an undesirable behavior.  But when you do, know you have struck gold. Run with it and soon you will be seeing a whole new side of your students.

Have you spent time replacing behaviors in the past? Feel free to share your experiences below to help others.

Happy Talking!

Expressive Vocabulary Repertoire: Basis for Qualification?

I recently had a discussion with a colleague regarding qualification of speech therapy based solely on the number of expressive vocabulary words a child uses.

When working with very young children (under age 5), we understand the range of "typical development" can be very large.  So when I assess these children, I do want to have an accurate picture of the number of expressive vocabulary words a child uses. However I also want to take into account other things that will give me a holistic view of the child's expressive language skills.  So I ask myself (and the parents/guardians as necessary) these questions:

1. Does the child use language for a variety of social purposes (labeling, requesting objects, requesting actions, requesting assistance, greeting others, initiating/terminating activities, protesting, etc.)?
2. Does the child use various types of words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, greetings, negatives, etc.)?
3. Does the child combine words together into 2-3+ word phrases and create novel word combinations?
4. Does the child exhibit periods of time (3+ months) where he/she ceases to learn new words?
5. Does the child cease to use previously known and used words?

If I can answer "yes" to questions 1-3, than I am fairly confident this child is developing language naturally yet he/she may simply be on the low average end of the "typical range" when looking at expressive vocabulary repertoire.

However, if I answer "yes" to questions 4-5 than I cannot ignore that there may be some underlying issues affecting language development and will either recommend further assessment or suggest treatment if determined appropriate.

So, how much stock should we take in expressive vocabulary inventory?  We certainly should take some stock in it as it does give us a guide and starting point into understanding a child's expressive language skills.  However it alone is not adequate to determine the existence of a delay or disorder.  Therefore we must continue to take a holistic approach to assessment and we most certainly should be asking ourselves the above questions when analyzing our results and determining if further services are needed.

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.

Tip Tuesday: Using Big Block Singsong in speech therapy!

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I've been thinking about blogging about this topic for a while now as it is just a fun therapy activity you can do with your young kiddos.  Have you ever watched the "Big Block Singsong" shorts that play on a few of the children's channels or on youtube?  

These shorts are colorful, fun, engaging animations that are only a few minutes long.  Each short consists of a song that teaches young children about various age-appropriate topics.  Depending on your student's cognitive level and language skills, I could see these animated clips being used for children PK-early elementary ages.  You can find these cute "big" blocks singing about:

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• animals
• body parts and senses
• being brave and trying new foods
• coping with feelings of anger
• other emotions such as happy and sad
• concepts of same vs. different
• fruits vs. vegetables (and healthy foods)
• occupations (magician, farmer, etc.)
• and so much more

How do I use Big Block Singsong for therapy?

1.  First, I introduce the topic/theme
2.  Then we watch the big block singsong animation that goes along with that theme
3.  We talk about what we learned from big block singsong
4.  Replay the clip and sing along (repetition) 

Want to check it out for yourself?  Here is a link to one of my personal favorite episodes on youtube:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrwxTedNwCQ 

The clips can be used to teach so many skills:

• categories (animals-farm/ocean/forest, foods-fruits/vegetables)
• time concepts (night/day)
• concepts (same/different)
• emotions (what they look like, what things might make us feel a certain way, how should be handle each emotion)
• social skills (trying new foods, coping with anger, meeting/making new friends, being friends with someone who is different than I am, etc.)

Have you ever used "Big Block Singsong" in your therapy?  If so, how did you use it?  Do you have any tips for us?  Comment below!

Enjoy and happy singing and learning!!!

Tip Tuesday! Thematic therapy and vocabulary!

I have been working with preschool age children with speech and language deficits for many years now and I have found, for me, the most effective way to improve language skills and receptive and expressive vocabulary is to do so using themes in my speech therapy!

If you look at a typical preschool program, they are modeled by following a weekly theme as well so it makes sense to me, that I would model my therapy for the same children in the same manner.  When I worked in the schools as an early childhood speech pathologist, I would obtain a list of classroom teachers' weekly themes for the whole year up front and build my therapy sessions around the child's weekly classroom themes.  The nice thing about this was that most of the early childhood teachers did follow the same weekly themes throughout the year so my therapy activities could be used for most of the children on my caseload regardless of what classroom the child was in.  Of course modifying the activities to focus on individual goals and highlighting individual strengths is a necessary component of any successful speech therapy session.  So keep that in mind when planning your thematic therapy.

As you know, I am a firm believer in play therapy as well, although I do believe there is a time and place for drilling an new skill prior to expecting carryover.  So setting my therapy schedule up to match the classroom teachers' themes actually allowed me to have more in-class therapy time (push-in therapy, inclusion therapy, whatever you want to call it) during their free play times in order to practice learned skills in a functional play setting with same-aged peers.  I found this to be very enjoyable as well as effective.  While in the classroom, I was able to observe what skills each child has generalized to the classroom setting and which skills required more work from me.

I also found that (what I call) the "speech hat" effect at times could be more of an illusion than true mastery.  The "speech hat" effect is what I call the phenomena when children seem to demonstrate success with a speech and/or language skill in the speech room with myself (as if they put on their "speech hat" at my door) but cannot carryover to other environments.  So getting a bird's eye view in the classroom really helped to guide my therapy goals and expectations accordingly.

Another reason, I very much love to create thematic therapy units is because it is a natural way to teach and increase awareness of categories which aids in semantic networking, word retrieval and of course language development.  If I'm focusing on zoo animals, then I will not be taking about a sheep or cow, but I will be discussing giraffes, lions, and tigers.  Now I've naturally created a scheme for zoo animals without having to actually spend time "teaching" the category.

So how did I create my thematic units?  What types of activities did I include?  Well, each week I planned and included at least one of each of the following activities below.  Not every child would participate in every activity as I would choose which activities best met their communication needs (I was always thinking "individualized therapy" and that was my guide to determining the best activities for each student on my caseload).  These activities are in no particular order and can be interchangeable.  I usually presented at least 2 different activities during our sessions as appropriate (which were only 20 minutes due to shorter attention span and also aided in keeping groups smaller which improved 1:1 attention).  However if spontaneous natural learning was occurring I would NOT change to another activity just because I had another one planned.  Therapy at this age is all about following the child's lead.

Here is a list of the types of activities I would plan for thematic therapy:

1.  Thematic Book:  I always chose a book about the weekly theme.  I tried to keep this book just above the current language skills (so I usually had 3 different levels of books for my lowest to highest kiddos and would choose books accordingly).  By the way, the school library (or media center, since that's what many are being called these days) is a great resource for thematic books of varying levels of complexity!

2.  Thematic Song:  I loved incorporating music with our weekly themes so I would teach my kiddos 1 or 2 new songs each week.  We added gross and fine motor movements which made it all the more fun.

I LOVE the Piggyback song book series and I use them even with my own son!!!  I know they are old but they are great!  These books are filled with wonderful kid songs to familiar tunes so you don't have to read music to learn new songs.  And where did I purchase these gems?  On Amazon of course! :)

3.  Craft/Art project:  This activity could be as simple as coloring or as complex as following multi-step directions to complete a craft.  A few time-saving tips:  I always cut up all the pieces to a craft ahead of time. I organized my glue, scissors, crayons, markers, paints and brushes in a small plastic tote for quick and easy use, and I always had child wipes on hand for those times we were enjoying a messy craft!  Wipes are a quick way to clean up kiddos that need to head back to class.

Since it is BTS time, here is just one example of a cute craft activity that can be used to incorporate language (following directions, vocabulary, spatial position words) and academics (shapes, numbers, etc.).  I found this craft on Twodaloo.  Click on this link for more BTS ideas. 

4.  Play activity:  There was always at least one play activity that incorporated fine or gross motor skills and thematic play.  Tip:  I always had the play activity as my second activity of the day, b/c it's easier to transition from playing back to the classroom, than from playing to another speech activity.  Here are just a few examples of play activities I have done in the past:

• I had the fire trucks and doll house out the week we discussed fire safety
• We played with my fisher price farm and animals when discussing farm animals week
• We played with zoo animals and blocks to create zoo gates for each animal
• We played with cars, trucks, planes, trains when talking about transportation week
• We played restaurant with fake food the week we talked about our 5 senses (I would use real food to discuss concepts such as sweet, salty, sour, spicy, etc.)
• We played with my band in a box (awesome for early phonological awareness skills, rhythm, tempo, pitch, etc.)  and sang many familiar children's songs during music week.

5.  Speech/language drill activity:  Sometimes, even with the above activities, I still needed to drill a skill in some way, so I would usually play a quick game (usually a reinforcer game that could be used with all goals) in order to drill the skill I was targeting that day.

6.  Academic skills:  I never made a separate activity for academic skills but I always incorporated academic skills into the above activities.  For example, I might ask a child to give me three zoo animals and see if he/she can show one to one correspondence when counting.  Or we might label colors of objects in play.  I also would see if children recognized their names by sitting where their name tag was.  Sometimes we made patterns when building with legos, etc.  The list can go on and on, but its very, very easy to support academic skills in speech therapy tasks even at a very young age.

When I first started using thematic units as a therapy guide I created my own table like the one below to keep me on track and organized.  Over time, I used the table less and less but in my mind I still organized my thematic therapy the same way.  So here is just a visual example for you:

As you can see, I love thematic therapy and thematic vocabulary!  I feel it's the most functional way to teach vocabulary and expand language for young children.

Here is a nice website, I shared on my FB page months ago that allows you to create your own thematic therapy schedule for the year. Check it out!

Enjoy and Happy Talking!!!