Using One Item in Mixed Therapy Groups for Multiple Goals

Welcome and thanks to my guest blogger, Betsy from Love Speech Therapy! 

How using just ONE item in mixed therapy groups can actually address multiple student goals!

Planning for mixed groups in therapy can be tough!  Working on semantics, syntax, pragmatics, and articulation all in one session can be difficult.  What do you do?  Prep all separate materials for each student?  That is certainly a great option, one that we all typically do most of the time!  But what if it didn’t take so many materials for the mixed group?  What if you are a traveling SLP and you left your core materials at home or at a different school?  What if you are a new SLP and are still learning how to provide therapy to mixed groups?  I think I may have just the answer for you!

You see, we do not have to make therapy harder than what it is.  I will tell you how you can address multiple goals by only using 1 PICTURE CARD!  As an example, let’s use the Webber Articulation Cards.  I think we are all familiar with these and most likely have tons in our therapy rooms and bags.  These are perfect for this idea.  Here are ways that we could conduct therapy using just 1 articulation picture card.  (Yes, just one!)

Articulation

Practice the sound at the student’s level saying the word multiple times, creating a sentence, or even creating a story with the word.

Semantics

Students can describe the “dog” by attributes, tell the definition, talk about where they see a dog, or sequence the steps to taking a dog on a walk or feeding a dog.

Syntax 

Students can work on pronouns such as “my dog”, “your dog”, “his dog”, “The dog belongs to him.”, etc.  Students can work on increasing utterances by adding more words into their sentences. (Tip:  I make it simple and just count on my fingers each word of the sentence and encourage students to add more words!  This is a great visual to show them!)

Pragmatics 

Create sentences about the topic to work on topic maintenance or have students ask each other questions about the topic.  While they are doing this, also work on turn taking.  If needed, have each student hold the card when it is his or her turn to speak, and then instruct them to pass the card to the next person. (This is great for following directions!)  

Does this mean you shouldn’t use multiple therapy materials for each student?  Absolutely not.  In fact, I still conduct therapy using all these methods!  But, I hope that you were able to learn a few new ideas for making therapy fun and productive, even just using one picture card.

What are some additional ideas that you can think of for addressing speech and language goals using this same picture card?  I’d love to hear them!

Thanks for reading,
Betsy @ Love Speech Therapy 
[email protected]

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