If you work with students who use AAC, particularly those on the autism spectrum or with multiple disabilities, using visuals is so important to help your students access the world around them. I tend to think of visuals for speech therapy in two categories: 1. Visuals to help the student with comprehension (receptive visual aids) 2. Visuals to help the student to communicate with others (expressive) Creating Visuals for Speech Therapy and the Classroom Because a lot of students (especially those with more profound needs) benefit from personalized visuals, it is great to be able to create them yourself. I use Boardmaker to create my resources. Most speech therapy departments…

It’s almost the end of the school year- whoo hoo! But it can be a VERY busy time of the year with extra IEP meetings and reports to write. I’ve got some summer Speech-Language activities for you . . . and most are no-prep or low-prep! (If you looking for summer speech-language activities geared more toward early language skills for students who need lots of visuals, check out this article.) This post contains affiliate links, which means we could receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. Summer Speech-Language Activities: Summer Coloring Activities Coloring is a preferred activity for a lot of students…

This article was written by guest blogger Candace Denver for speakplaylove.com. More than one million children in the US receive school-based speech and language services. It was necessary then, for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to maintain clinical speech-language services via teletherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic closures. Studies indicate that over 60% of responding SLPs provided teletherapy to all or some students on their caseloads through Zoom and Google Hangouts. Despite 25% receiving no support or training from their district to maintain service provision, many SLPs were largely successful in their efforts.   Even as things go back to normal, the delivery of some SLP services will likely continue this way. There are plenty…

I wanted to do a bit of a “brain dump” of all the spring speech therapy themes I could think of. My hope is that reading through these theme ideas will get your creative juices flowing when it comes to planning your speech therapy sessions this spring! Spring Speech Therapy Themes: Baby Animals: matching baby animals to parents (animal vocabulary) Learn about baby animals (answer Wh- questions) bunnies/carrots chicks (make a chick craft) Flowers/Gardening: flower shop pretend play (free flower describing board to use for “ordering” flowers) plant life cycle (sequencing) learn about flowers (flower vocabulary, Wh- questions) parts of a flower (flower vocabulary) plant a seed  (following directions, sequencing)…

As a speech and language pathologist, there are a lot of fun themes to work on in the winter! Below I will share winter speech therapy activities, theme ideas, winter speech therapy books, and craft ideas. These ideas are mostly for students who are working on language goals – from emergent communication (think pre-k or minimally verbal students) as well as students working on language therapy skills such as following directions, inferences, and WH- questions. There are also a couple of articulation activities on the list!   This post contains affiliate links, which means we could receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have…

Those 2-3 weeks in December before school gets out can feel like an eternity. (When is break starting!?!) However, it can also be a time to add some fun, Christmas speech therapy activities into your sessions!   This post contains affiliate links, which means we could receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. Christmas Speech Therapy Themes: To get your mind thinking about different possibilities this season, here are some theme ideas! Cookies/Baking Gingerbread (houses or cookies) gifts – receiving and giving (see social skills idea below) Reindeer Mail (Letters to Santa or Holiday Cards) Stockings Christmas trees/pine trees Decorating Hot Cocoa…

I know that a lot of my students have found coloring to be an engaging and calming activity. I also know that in one of my school-based positions, I had  A LOT of students working on auditory comprehension goals – so I was always on the lookout for following directions speech therapy activities to use! Following Directions Speech Therapy Activities and Worksheets So now I just create my own Following Directions Coloring Activities! I wanted something that included a range of directions including simple one-step directions, directions with 1-2 modifiers, 2-step directions, and temporal directions (e.g. first/then, before you X, color Y). The first one I created was this “Around…

Do you love buying those mini-pumpkins as much as I do? When I went to Trader Joe’s this year, they had tons of adorable mini-gourds too! It got me thinking about pumpkin speech therapy activities. Here are some ideas: Pumpkin Speech Therapy Activity Ideas:   Pumpkin Speech Therapy Craft – 3D Pumpkin This adorable 3D pumpkin craft reminds me of the mini-pumpkins from Trader Joe’s: win-win! Plus students will love to take home the little pumpkin for carry-over! It includes articulation targets and language targets (like categories, synonyms, irregular plurals, and more) on the sides of the pumpkins that you can work on as students color, cut, assemble and glue…