Speech Pathologists often need a range of different resources to complete assessment and intervention – we often call this our ‘toolkit’. Having a well established toolkit can help both new and seasoned clinicians feel more confident and prepared for their sessions. It’s a bonus if it’s a resource that can have multiple applications and uses for a wide variety of clients and goals too! There is no such thing as a perfect, complete toolkit – as a clinician, you’ll find that you will keep adding resources to your list as you begin and progress through your Speech Pathology journey…but it’s always nice to know how to begin building your toolkit by knowing what resources other clinicians love when working with their own caseload.
3 SLP Resources I Couldn’t Live Without (and How I Use Them)
1. UNO:
UNO is such a versatile resource. It can be used with so many populations on your caseload. I’ve used it with pre-school children, school-aged children, teenagers and adults. Because UNO is colour coded, has numbers and a plethora of rules (some that people have undoubtedly made up!), it acts as a great resource for so many different goals and skills. This list is a small snapshot of what you could target with UNO:
- Negotiation – almost every client (and clinician) I’ve played UNO with will always start by negotiating the rules. This is great to support perspective taking, giving and sharing information, persuading, and problem solving.
- Sharing and quantitative concepts – if you’re not playing by the rules, you can manipulate UNO into coloured cards that can act as ‘tokens’ to be shared amongst players or participants. This can also include the use of numbers and counting (making sure everyone has the same number of cards), and can also give rise to exposure to sharing vocabulary and quantitative concepts (e.g. same, different, equal, less, more, etc).
- Turn taking – UNO is a natural turn taking game. It can also be manipulated into a snap, memory or go-fish game if used with younger children who may not yet understand the objective of the game when played by the rules.
- Sorting and matching – Similar to quantitative concepts, you can use UNO as a sorting game when teaching or practising colour and number vocabulary (often a great multidisciplinary goal between Speech Pathology and Occupational Therapy for younger children). You can also step it up to include parameter vocabulary (e.g. less than, more than) when talking about the numbers (e.g. sorting numbers less than 5 in one pile, and more than 5 in another pile). Matching can also be targeted through modelling of vocabulary such as ‘same’ and ‘different’ when using UNO cards.
2. Stickers:
Stickers are a fun way to provide younger children with a quick reinforcement to support their engagement, but they can also be used as a main resource within your therapy activities.
- Barrier games – If you have two sets of the same stickers and two pieces of white paper, you’re ready to play a barrier game! Barrier games often have the objective of the players having the same finished product at the end of the game, whether it be matching towers, pictures, or creations, with a barrier in the middle. Stickers can be used to create a picture scene (with additional drawings if you wanted to make it a bit more complex), and you can target a multitude of goals across speech and language whilst you play, such as:
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- Phonological errors (e.g. s-blends)
- Articulation practice (isolation, syllable, word, phrase, sentence, generalisation levels)
- Following instructions
- Descriptive language
- Spatial/locational concepts
- Verb tense
- Pronouns (I, me, you, she, he)
- Giving information
- Sequencing
- Turn taking
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- Story generation – You can use a range of different stickers to plan and create a story, as they can act as a visual guide and support. You can pair this with a story map and use the stickers as a visual support to help younger- and school-aged children to plan and construct a narrative.
- Map creation – You can use stickers to create a map that you and your client are required to follow in order to find something hidden. When creating the map, locational vocabulary can be used and modelled, as well as a range of verbs (pull, stick, put, follow, etc), pronouns (I stick, you stick), verb tense (stuck, sticking, will stick), making choices (this or that) and conjunctions (and, because, or, etc).
3. Lateral view diagram of the head and neck:
When completing dysphagia assessment and consultations with adults, I often find myself describing what a ‘typical swallow mechanism’ may look like and how it may function. I believe that provision of this information is incredibly important so that what we find during our assessment can be conveyed as important information. Using a visual to support the explanation of how a swallow works and how food and fluid may travel down the oesophagus vs what happens when it penetrates into the airway is often a great way to engage your adult client or family members/support network in your education. It is also a great way to introduce any instrumental assessments that you are recommending, so that the client may visualise what it is that the assessment will look for, where it will look for it, and how it may work.
By Nikita Mathur, Speech-Language Pathologist