Using holidays to encourage Conversation Skills

This post is all about helping kids generalize their language skills using something that all kids love...holidays!  Talking about upcoming holidays is a great way to help kids solidify their newfound language skills because:
1. Holidays are super motivating for kids, they are fun!
2. Holidays are very high frequency topics in the weeks proceeding each major holiday.
3. Holiday conversations often are repetitive and predictive...talking about Halloween, well then expect to be asked what you will dress up as, talking about Christmas, expect to be asked what you have asked Santa for, etc.

So I take full advantage of the holidays when they roll around.  Having a private practice helps because then I don't have to worry about crossing some blurry school vs. church topic line.  I ask parents beforehand and go with what they generally talk about.  I LOVE working directly with parents.

These are some of the big goals that I work on in our conversations:
 topic maintenance if we are talking about Halloween let's stay there for a few minutes and not jump around to Star Wars or Cars II.
 conversational turns are we both sharing the talking time, is my client giving answers and asking questions, etc.
 ability to answer wh-questions and ask wh-questions this is a big one, in therapy it is easy to work on  answering wh-questions but harder to find spontaneous opportunities to ask them.  The basically scripted holiday conversation routines everyone uses are great for that.
eye-contact is the student engaging in appropriate eye-contact, especially when requesting information?
and other conversation level grammar and speech sound goals (using correct pronouns, correct helper verbs or conjunctions, verb tenses, /k/ sounds, etc.)

and the best part...these are conversations that have a huge likelihood of being taken outside of the therapy session time so the students can practice and apply the skills we have been working on to help them interact with peers.

Best Language Milestones References

Here are some of my favorite Speech and Language Milestone References.

LinguiSystems Communication Milestones FREE (has a ton of data, might have some terms that are confusing if you are not super familiar with SLP literature)

Zero to Three Developmental Milestones a great resource for kids ages birth to 3 years hits all major areas of development (not just speech and language)

ASHA Birth to age 5 Reference  contains information about language and speech development for ages birth to five, broken down by how old they are

ASHA Kindergarten to 5th Grade Reference contains information about language skill for school age kids broken down by what grade they are in


There are a lot of developmental checklists out there for tracking your child's speech.  You will notice that each checklist has a wide range of when kids are supposed to be picking up new skills.  That is because all kids progress differently and that is ok...but sometimes it is hard to know exactly when to worry.

Will your child figure it out if you just watch and see?  Does your child need specialized help?  It can be confusing and cause anxiety...if you feel worried I suggest that you first talk with your pediatrician and the child's preschool or school teacher.  These professionals know normal development and are very good at sensing if there is a bigger problem.  Then you can reach out to a Speech and Language Pathologist (SLP) if it is appropriate.  There are some milestones that are very important for kids to master, a SLP will be able to tell you exactly which skills your child is in the process of learning and which will come next and where to start working and how to target each goal and most importantly...why these skills are so important.

*tip - as you are researching I highly recommend checking out the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website:  ASHA's website. It will contain the most recent evidence-based research so you can be sure you are getting facts and not crazy internet information that will just freak you out.

A NEW Red Light Green Light: learning past tense verb endings

A lot of my clients are working on past tense "ed" verb endings.  A lot of my clients have worked on -ing endings.  Verb endings are hard, especially for kids with language delays or disorders.  This game is appropriate for kids who are 3+ years old but older kids (6-7) enjoy it too.

*extra info: past tense means the "ed" ending that you put on words when you talk about what you did yesterday.  Some words are irregular verbs and don't end in past tense yesterday...like run - ran.

This is a game that I created years ago when I was completing my internship in an autism cluster unit.  I use it all of the time and kids LOVE it.  It works especially well at the beginning of the school year because that is when classes are really hitting safety as kids go to school.

1. Get a piece of red paper, green paper, and yellow paper.  Teach (or review) what each color means at a crosswalk...you can read some fabulous books about safety here, Scholastic has some, your local library has some :)

2. Have your kid pick a motion.  At first I like to have some written down that they can choose from, pull out of a hat, etc.  Look for words that do not have irregular past tense verbs.  If you need help here is a list of some you can start with:

walk

clap

stomp 

jump 

hop 

look 

work 

call 

clean 

hum

For my example I will use "walk" but you can use anything that ends in "ed" if you did it yesterday.
Then practice these phrases while holding up your colored papers:

NO PAPER: Vocab Prep We will walk
GREEN: Start walking We are walking
YELLOW: Start walking slower We are walking slowly
RED: Stop walking Now we are finished...we walked.

*tip-make sure you really emphasize the "t" or "d" sound at the end of the word so the child recognizes it is there. If your child is just not getting it you can try touching your nose each time you say the "t" or "d" sound to give them a visual cue that they need to attend to the end of the word.

One book I love that goes with this skill:  From Head to Toe by Eric Carle, you can do each motion then pause and say...Now we are done, we raised our shoulders, or whatever page you are on.

Disclaimer:  remember if you think your child has a speech or language delay it is always best to work with a trained Speech and Language Therapist...they can tell you for sure which activities are best for your individual child.