The Best Games to Target Multiple Goals in Speech Therapy

Great games for speech therapy!

Board games and card games are great tools to help expand and facilitate language. They are a relevant and meaningful way to target many speech and language goals in a natural environment – eye contact, turn taking, following directions, basic concepts, vocabulary, attention, and so much more!

These games also provide an ideal way to generalize the goals you have been working on. You can adapt pretty much any game to better fit your needs with more/fewer players, targeting other goals, or even making it more simple or complex.

Find these speech therapy games are your typical retailers and two of my favorite companies for educational games and toys are Learning Resources and Educational Insights.

FAVORITE SPEECH THERAPY GAMES WITH LANGUAGE GOAL TARGETS:

FOX IN A BOX
Children will use a spinner to tell them where to place picture cards—in a tree, on a hat, over a chair, etc. This game is ideal for positional concepts, following multi-step directions, rhyming, and turn taking. Ages 3+

PICKLES TO PENGUINS
This game contains 100 real picture cards with the goal to link 2 cards at a time by naming a commonality between them. Target categories, associations, vocabulary, and comparing attributes. Ages 8+

BACKSEAT DRAWING JR
The “director” describes to the “artist” what to draw while players try to identify the picture. You need a minimum of 3 players but could play with 2 by adapting the game. This game works great for giving and following directions, describing, attributes, as well as teamwork. Ages 7+

PANCAKE PILEUP
This game is a relay race in which you stack the pancakes in the sequence found on the order card. Perfect for sequencing, teamwork, following directions, prepositions, and memory! It is great for a social skills group. You can easily use the pancakes and spatulas in open-ended, pretend play as well. Ages 4+

SLAPZI CARD PARTY GAME
Contains 120 real picture cards. Players have a hand of cards and a “clue card” is presented with an attribute. The goal is to be the first one to lay down an appropriate card from your hand. First to get rid of their cards wins. Target word retrieval, memory, categories, associations, vocabulary, and turn taking. Ages 6+

WHERE IS HOWIE’S OWIE?
This game contains a magnetic easel of Howie with magnetic bandages of different colors and sizes. Work on vocabulary (body parts, colors), prepositions, following multi-step directions, and turn taking. This also serves as a great reinforcer! Ages 3+

HEDBANZ
Ask “yes” and “no” questions to figure out what you are! Each player wears a headband with a card that they can’t see. Work on deductive reasoning, critical thinking, making inferences, formulating questions, using descriptive words, and turn taking. Ages 6+

GUESS WHO?
Ask “yes” and “no” questions to find out who the mystery character is. Work on attributes, compare/contrast, asking and answering questions, and describing. You can easily replace the characters with pictures of other things to target more specific goals.  Ages 6+

CLUE
Find out who committed the crime and with what weapon by elimination through asking questions. Target attributes, asking questions, describing, deductive reasoning, inferencing, and memory. This is a longer game, but you can make it shorter by not incorporating some of the people and weapons. Ages 8+

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Interested in game lists and ideas for how to use them?

The Play-Based Therapy Handouts Guidebook has a section on games:

• Tips for Choosing Games
• How to Use Games in Play-Based Therapy
• Game Ideas
• Language Games List
• Social Skills Games List
• Articulation Games List
• Toy and Game Ideas 0-3 Years, 3-5 Years, 5-8 Years, 8-12 Years, 12+ Years 
  

This well-rounded guidebook explains what child-led therapy looks like and the research behind play-based learning. It provides countless tips and activity ideas for toys, games, books, and themes with specific speech and language targets. Use pages as parent handouts to explain what play-based therapy is and why it’s beneficial, the development of play skills, tips for choosing toys, book and game ideas, how to use everyday objects as tools, and more.

Thanks for reading!
Do you have any favorite speech therapy games? Or games you use to target multiple speech therapy goals? Let me know!

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