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Allison Fors, Inc.

Speech Therapy Tools for SLPs and Educators

Why You Should Be Using Play Dough Mats in Speech Therapy

play dough mats

Work on countless speech and language targets in an engaging way with play dough mats! Be sure to grab the free mats at the end!

Mats are a great way to use play dough in a functional, interactive way in therapy. As I’m sure you’re already well aware, play dough is a popular activity among a wide age group.  Since it’s fun and engaging, it doesn’t feel like work for the student and makes the therapist’s life easier – win-win. Also, these mats are super versatile since you can easily target so many goals, and I find it’s a breeze to get many repetitions while using them! To make things even easier, there are lots of free ones on the internet. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, they are extremely easy to create for your needs.

TIP: Laminate or put them in sheet protectors so the play dough doesn’t ruin the paper after one use.

Speech Therapy Goals Using Play Dough Mats

FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS
The mats can be used to teach following directions in tons of different ways. There are mats on the internet like the ones found below that have a specific direction to follow. You can use these or a mat with a generic scene/image to incorporate any receptive language skills that make sense for the play dough mat. Work on 1-step directions, multiple-step directions, temporal directions, and sequential directions!

following directions play dough mats

PRONOUNS
If you have mats with a boy and girl it is easy to work on nouns and pronouns! I like these blank face mats to practice directions such as, “make a nose and put it on the boy” or more complex directions, such as, “make an eyeball for him”. If you have mats with people, have the child cover “the boy” with dough (nothing is more fun than smashing a play dough ball) or “make a balloon and give it to her”.

PREPOSITIONS
Work on spatial concepts by placing the play dough in various locations on the mat. This is a fun way to test or generalize these skills.  I made these ones and use them to work on prepositions and following directions. For example, “make a ball and put it under the table.”

Prepositions Play Dough Mats

prepositions play dough

BASIC CONCEPTS
Since play dough mats are so versatile, it is easy to incorporate many basic concepts. In addition to the basic concepts already discussed above, you can work on: colors, sizes, shapes, opposites, negation, emotions, textures, time, temporal concepts, quantitative concepts, and qualitative concepts.

ARTICULATION/PHONOLOGY/APRAXIA
You can find, or easily create mats with articulation words/pictures for the student to practice, and then “smash” or cover. I made these specific mats to work on apraxia because the mats are a perfect way to get lots of repetition and trials!

Apraxia Play Dough Mats

apraxia speech therapy

VOCABULARY
Use play dough to expand and learn vocabulary. Two ways to work on this are to have the child make something with the play dough for the mat (e.g. make a blue ball and put it on the mat) or identify the term from the mat (e.g. put play dough on the blue hat). Here is a list of fairly easy, quick items to have your student make with play dough while following directions using mats:

– ball
– cookie
– orange
– banana
– pizza
– circle
– heart
– happy face
– rope
– jump rope
– stick
– snake
– balloon
– snowball
– snowman

Grab these FREE mats! OPEN ENDED PLAY DOUGH MATS

free open ended mats

Do you use play dough mats in speech and language intervention? How else do you use them?

 

 

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speech therapy play dough mats

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August 30, 2017 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Speech Resources, Therapy Ideas

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Hi, I'm Allison! A speech & language resource author who loves the creative process of making therapy materials and clipart, as well as connecting with educators world wide. Learn more about me here! Read More…

Echolalia is actually a positive prognostic indica Echolalia is actually a positive prognostic indicator for autistic children! We don’t treat it this way most of the time even though it’s a communicative function for the individual. Instead of ignoring or trying to get a child to stop, we should try to shape the content into meaningful communication by teaching the meaning of the words or modeling appropriate language.
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Echolalia is a repetition of another person’s spoken words. This often presents in a child quoting favorite movies or repeating a question directed towards them.
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(Prizant 1987)
Resurfacing this for Better Hearing and Speech Mon Resurfacing this for Better Hearing and Speech Month 👄🗣🧠👂🏼 

What are you!? Tag a friend!👇
Common Diacritics for Cleft Affected Speech 👇👇👇

Nasal emission: The audible release of bursts of air through the nose during speech while producing a consonant that requires a buildup of air pressure.

Nasal turbulence: The escape of air through the nasal cavity, but it is perceived as turbulent, a snort or nasal rustle.

Dentalized: When the tip of the tongue is pushed against the back of the upper teeth.

Hypernasailty: A condition when air flows through the nasal passage during voiced consonants and vowels causing too much nasal resonance. It may or may not be audible.

Hyponasality: A condition when there is not enough nasal resonance on nasal sounds due to a blockage in the nasopharynx or nasal cavity.

Fronted: When a sound produced in the back of the mouth is replaced with a sound made in the front of the mouth.

Backed: When a sound produced in the front of the mouth is replaced with a sound made in the back of the mouth.

Save this post to reference later!
SPEECH VS LANGUAGE. BHSM seems like a good time to SPEECH VS LANGUAGE. BHSM seems like a good time to share this again. 

Oh how many times I’ve explained these two terms! Do you find yourself breaking down the difference between speech and language?

This graphic is in the Free SLP Handouts download. 🔗 allisonfors.com/speech-therapy-handouts/
May is Better Hearing and Speech Month! Now if onl May is Better Hearing and Speech Month! Now if only there was an easy way to explain alllll the aspects of speech-language pathology! 👄🦻🏻
Want to know what the most horrific/best thing I e Want to know what the most horrific/best thing I ever did in therapy was?
Video myself.
😳😳😳
I realized I wasn’t giving enough wait time for my students. Turns out what feels like eternity after you ask a question, is really half a second. 😂 It took a lot of retraining to be ok with the quiet and not try to fill every moment with a teaching opportunity. Try counting to 10 before you jump in!

Have you ever filmed yourself in therapy? What was your biggest takeaway? 
If you’ve never done it or it’s been awhile...do it!

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