Unpacking the Activity

It is Tuesday and that means...a blog post actually relating to speech therapy. After all, it is a week day and technically part of the "work week" (side eyes).

I don't know where you, the reader, are currently located, but I feel like I could make a pretty general assumption that the weather is probably just as crappy where you are as it has been here. I mean warm, cold, FREEZING, warm, ARCTIC, SNOW, ICE, PANIC. You get the idea. Needless to say, I am not loving it. I pretty much want to hide out in my apartment at all times. And welcome to one of the biggest downsides of home health; that being, if you can't or don't feel like traveling, you're a bit out of luck.

Either way, I ventured out yesterday to do a few sessions and despite the minor depression I was in regarding the weather (complicated by a zombie-like personality thanks to some delicious McDonanld's fries), my brain kicked into therapy-mode.

If you are a seasoned SLP, this post will probably be a "no duh" kind of thing, but it's a therapy theory that I find helps me get the most out of single activities. It's called (announcer voice): "Unpacking the activity."

Unpacking the activity means that when you do an activity you just don't have the kid practice his words or language skills on the part specifically "designated" for practice. You take every part of the activity, from taking out the activity, to putting it away, and make. it. count!

This is what I had:

- A page of artic pictures from Mommy Speech Therapy
- Red, green, and blue wooden beads and two strings

Target: Final consonant deletion (/t/)

Unpacking This Activity:
- Produced targets individually by placing a bead on each picture post-production; also targeted making a choice from 2 (red or yellow?) as well as ID'ing colors
- Produced targets individually again by choosing/stringing a bead; also targeted making color comparisons as well as ID'ing colors
- Targeted basic counting (3-5) during activity; produced other final /t/ targets in the phrase, "I go/t/ i/t/!" after stringing each bead
- Produced final /d/ in the word "bead" while taking each off the string
- Grouped together beads by color and ID'd colors as requested followed putting them back in the box
- Non-routine directions integrated throughout the activity

I feel like as a beginning therapist I had a difficult time making activities last or integrating multiple goals into a single activity or session. These are just a few ideas of how to take simple materials and make them work for multiple purposes. I am a big fan of getting in as many productions possible for articulation clients and I find that "unpacking" activities provide multiple, non-traditional opportunities for this.

Do you have any special tricks for getting the most out of your therapy activities?