Listen, we have a bunch of really great, ready-made, materials on this site for therapists (truly, go check out the shop!). And they will usually come with one intended purpose or set of instructions. But honestly, nothing brings me more joy than taking one resource and making it stretch for multiple sessions, or sets of goals, across my day.
I think that spark orginated when I was working as a school-based SLP early on in my career. I had 60+ students on my caseload to see in a given week, had to see kids in groups based primarily on their schedule rather than their goals, and had VERY limited resources. That need to make a game fit multiple sets of very different goals continued to be a need, even after changing jobs to work in a very well stocked private practice where I was only treating children on an individual basis. I liked being able to gather up only one basket of toys at the start of my day that could carry me through the bulk of my day.
But I digress…
Enter: Modification Mondays! Let’s start working through games and resources and share ideas on ways to modify them to target different goals.
I’ll list some ideas here, you guys keep the ideas flowing in the comments. Deal?
Let’s start with our “I-Spy Ultimate MEGA Activity Packet.”
3 Ways to Modify for Speech Therapy Goals:
Looking at my treatment style, I would be less likely to use this packet in my sessions but would love to add this to my home-program grab bag.
- Articulation: With so many pages, I could find a way to address most of my standard articulation goals. Single words are an easy grab and then these sheets could be used to work up through pivot phrases easily (” I spy …” “I see…” I found…”).
- Basic Concepts: One example that immediately came to mind was targeting “big v little” or “colors” with the Valentine’s Day sheets that have a variety of hearts in different colors and sizes.
- Categories: Go beyond the use of a single sheet, have your kiddos scan pages to look for things that fall into different categories such as people, animals, vehicles, etc.
Check out some of the images below and then leave us a comment about how you could modify instructions to reach your clients’ unique goals!
This blog post was written by Anna Housman, MS, CCC-SLP. Anna works for The Therapeutic Edge as a content manager, content creator, and instructor. She is a pediatric speech-language therapist at Emerge Pediatric Therapy in NC.