How to Categorize Activities for Speech Therapy

Hundreds of techniques are used in speech therapy.

You have probably encountered a child who was always the center of jokes and was constantly bullied by his peers. You wonder why the kids are so cruel to this particular child. When you hear him speak, however, you unfold the enigma: He can't speak without a severe stutter. In fact, it's not surprising to find children in the early stages of their lives who can't pronounce a word correctly, even if they try as hard as they can. When these issues occur, it's not the child's fault. Speech problems include genetic traits, such as autism, Asperger syndrome, stuttering, extreme shyness and lack of the ability to categorize and classify. This is why therapists have hundreds of activities under their sleeves, classified in different categories for better organization.

Things You'll Need

• Computer
• Notebook
• Microsoft Excel
• Activities

Instructions

1. List all the conditions and speech problems presented by your patients/students and turn them into categories. The number of categories entirely depends on your children's needs. If you, for example, have a patient, son or student with stuttering problems, make sure you add a "Stuttering" category.

2. Create a category of age as well. Divide the category in three sub-categories: activities to encourage speech and language development from birth to 2 years, from 2 to 4 years, from 4 to 6 years. If you have teenagers and adults patients as well, make a list of that particular age group.

3. Write down the categories you have just created in different columns. You may write "Asperger Syndrome" for Column A; "Stuttering" for Column B; "Language problems" for Column C, for instance.

4. Open a notepad application on your computer and list all the activities that you have.

5. Start by identifying the purpose of each activity. Remember that the activities are aimed to one sole purpose; you will seldom find activities aimed at more than three purposes. If you encounter activities of this sort, however, identify the "strongest" aim and which ones are most suitable for children with a particular kind of need. (For instance, activities in which children have to "Identify the feeling in the picture" may me suitable for children with Asperger Syndrome or autism.)

6. Classify the activities and place them in the correct categories on your Microsoft Excel file sheet. You can write an activity in more than one category (such as an activity aimed at children of 4 years with Asperger Syndrome), so as to avoid an unwanted mess and possible confusion between merged categories.

Tips & Warnings

• Some people may find identifying the aim of an activity a hard task. In case you bought toys aimed to help children with speech problems, check the back of the box. There has to be a label with "Aimed for children x years old." This will help you tremendously.

• If you are not very sure about an activity, you can always do it in a classroom/therapy session with a patient who has a particular speech problem. (for example, Asperger syndrome). Write down what is the person's reaction in regard to the activity. If you see improvement, put the activity in "Asperger syndrome".

• Classifying by ages gives you a wider scope on which activities are suitable and which are not. Imagine a 17 year old teenager. You won't use a children's activity with him, since you need him to do more competitive and tricky stuff.

• When classifying activities for children and babies, make sure that the toys that you are going to use are big enough to not be swallowed.

References

• Speech Therapy Forum: Stuttering
• Speech therapy-on-video
• Speechtx: How to Categorize Activities for Speech Therapy