In the UK, the National Curriculum states that all children should be taught to improve their speaking, listening and communication skills. Kids with special needs such as autism, developmental delays in their speech and language, oral dyspraxia, other specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, and hearing impairments may particularly benefit from these games, activities and lessons designed to promote speech and language skills.
Speech and Language lesson plan for the inclusive classroom
This lesson sequence has been designed to work with children at all levels of communication.
Approach each child in turn with a pen in your hand. Tell children they want the pen. How are they going to get it?
You may get a variety of responses from the verbal “Can I have the pen please?” to gestures such as placing palm out, grabbing, pointing, and often a combination of gesture and words. Point out that communication can be gestures, or words, or both.
Next, use a set of pre-prepared cards (they will take you about 5 minutes to make). On each card write a simple word such as "fish" and draw a simple line drawing underneath it. Have each child in turn come up in front of the class and describe their card in gestures or words, but not saying the word itself. The child who guesses wins the card.
If a child struggles to describe a card, ask questions that help the child to use language to categorise. Soon the other children will pick up on the idea and ask similar questions.
- Is it an object?
- Can you eat it?
- Is it something you do?
- Where do you do it?
- Where do you find it?
- Is it an animal?
- What colour/shape/size?
- What does it look like?
- Does it make a sound?
- What does it feel like?
Children can subsequently design their own cards. These will often be specific to their interests and will make for a more interesting game! the game can then be played in pairs and groups, against the clock or each other.
Play Articulate at home to develop speech and language skills
Once children can describe simple words, they can test their skills in a board game such as Articulate (tm Drummond Park). This game is fun and challenging for adults but you can easily adapt it for the level of the group, by letting players choose any word they like from the card, for example. The game is ideal to play with friends and family, each team member having to take turns describing or guessing. Numeracy skills are also built by dice rolling and counting along the board. Turn taking and game etiquette can also be practised.
Articulate is particularly good for children older kids with speech and language delays as it is very adult and mainstream commercial. Some older children with speech and language problems feel they are "babied" because of their difficulties, so the game is appealing to them.
The game is timed, and so stresses rapid communication. If you play with a mixture of articulacy in the group, the players can model to each other how to describe words. Guessing the words will be much easier for children with special language needs, but they can learn to describe better and faster, too.
Autistic children playing this game can be cued in with phrases such as “Give us a clue,” and “Have a guess!” Hearing impaired children or other children who use sign language or augmented communication can be encouraged to use this as part of the game.
Speech and language activities for kids with special needs
All children will enjoy playing these games, and they can be played at any level of language development, and for a variety of special educational needs. For games to improve speech pronunciation and phonological awareness, also see interactive games for kids learning to read. Teaching phonic letter sounds to dyslexic children and games to improve working memory may also be useful.
Cathy Anne Smith - Hello :) I wrote for Suite 101 until March 2011 and now publish my own fiction at Poems and Short Stories to Read Online .
