At 3 years, 10 months Sara started Speech Therapy (ST) with a local Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) who accepts our insurance and had one half-hour time slot open. At first the Speech Therapist ("Lisa") worked on filling in some of Sara's "gaps" that showed up during testing. For example, Sara understood some locations ('under, next to') but not others ('in back of, in front of'). They worked on these concepts receptively (understanding) and expressively (using them on her own). In the next few sessions they moved on to answering "Where" questions.
Activity #1: Understanding and Using location phrases
Use small people/animals and doll house or doll furniture.
Stand a doll up behind a chair and ask, "Where is the doll?"
Child should answer: "Behind the chair." If no answer or wrong answer, say
"behind the chair. . . the doll is behind the chair."
Ask child to repeat "Behind the chair"
Then ask again "Where is the doll?"
Repeat as you put the doll 'in front of the chair, next to the chair, in/on the chair,' etc.
Then switch and child becomes the 'teacher'. Child asks "Where is the doll?" and adult answers.
Activity #2: Understanding and Answering "WHERE" questions
The "WH" questions are often lumped together (especially in written goals, such as
"Child will answer WH- questions with 80% accuracy"), but the WHAT, WHERE,
WHO, WHY (and HOW) questions are very different in terms of difficulty and should
be targeted separately. For example, "What is this?" (picture of dog) is much easier
than "Why do you put on a coat?" In general, the order listed above is easiest
to hardest; just think about the first questions we ask babies. . . "What is that?
What is this?" when looking at toys and books.
For this activity, "Where" questions can be asked about the child's most familiar environment-
the home. The child might give one correct answer and the adult can also mention others.
"Where do we wash our hands?" (in the sink/bathroom)
"Where can we cook?" (in the kitchen, on the stove, in the oven, on the grill, etc.)
"Where do we put our dirty clothes?" (in the hamper, in the washing machine)
"Where do we wash our bodies?" (in the tub, in the shower)
"Where do we put our plates so we can eat?" (on the table)
Just like in Activity #1, if the child answers incorrectly, say the correct answer
and ask the question again.
We would do our best to do "Miss Lisa's homework" between sessions. It was easiest to do this when we were at her cousins' house after school and my niece and nephew were busy with their own homework. We tried to keep it short, make it fun with lots of praise and hugs, and generally try to associate homework with having fun/playing games. Since she is very motivated by snacks, we started giving a reward once the homework is finished--usually one jelly bean or Skittle. We've been lucky that this positive association towards homework still continues now that she is in Kindergarten and has "real" homework.
I'm so excited to see this post! Caleb's speech is uneven and answering these where and what questions have been a big challenge for him.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you found it helpful! We continued to work on these "Where" questions for several months as we moved on to "Who" questions, "When", etc. I think the first few weeks were the most difficult as Sara began to understand what was expected of her. Even though we progressed to more difficult questions, it became easier for her to listen to the questions and give an appropriate answer.
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