My favorite part of the COVID-19 lockdown was getting to see everyone’s pets. I love pets! Many of my patients do, too, and I had to make “pets” one of my reusable monthly themes. Here are some ways I’m incorporating “pets” into my practice this month… You can find my other themed virtual therapy rooms …
I’ve had to make the very difficult decision to retire my speech therapy dog, Zooey, when she almost bit a couple kids in a single day. This is very unlike Zooey and all my families who’ve been working with her for years have been as surprised as I was. I think her behavior might be …
A “weighted lap buddy” is like a small weighted blanket in the form of a stuffed animal. These help kids who have trouble sitting in their seats, kids who feel nervous, or even just kids who love stuffed animals! You can find weighted lap buddies for $40 – $50 on Amazon, but I wanted to …
Update: I’m so sad to see that this app is no longer available! Baby Shark Hospital is a similar one for $13.99 and so is Animal Games Doctor for Kids, which is FREE. I’m constantly looking for new and fun naturalistic activities. One of my favorite apps is Toca Pet Doctor. This app isn’t one …
For my pet-themed sensory bin I took the two pet Safari Toobs that I had, threw them into the plastic rocks that I had (and which remind me of aquarium gravel without being so heavy), and added some glow-in-the-dark plastic rocks. This bin has been evoking all sorts of conversations about different pets – so …
Boy, do kids love blind boxes! I don’t remember them being around when I was a kid, but I’m surprised at how popular they are now. I do remember loving any toy that involved pets and the Barbie Pet Surprise box combines both these themes. These cute, soft, and colorful pets were first made into …
Here’s March’s pet-themed virtual treatment room! Visit it to see the webcams, apps, videos, and websites I’m using this month. Here’s a link to my folder of treatment virtual therapy rooms (so you can download and edit a room to make it your own). You can find my other themed virtual treatment rooms here.
Please visit my original post here to learn the basics about therapy dogs and animal-assisted intervention in speech-language pathology. Expressive langauge skills are the easiest to address with AAI. You simply have the animal do things (or wait until they do things) then use common techniques such as communication temptations to get the child to …
Here’s my video tutorial on how I’ve been using Toca Pet Doctor with more details on the least-to-most cueing hierarchy I use when I’m targeting these skills. A special note: When inferencing the cause of emotions I prefer to ask “what made him feel sad?” rather than “why does he feel sad?” I find if I use …
Please visit my original post here to learn the basics about using a therapy dog in speech & language treatment. Once you have the basics you can start thinking about using AAI for social skills. Most kids start greeting Zooey before they start greeting me. It’s an interesting example of dogs being helpful for kids …
