Movement, crafts, themed activities and games are just a few ways we like to make our therapy session FUN and MOTIVATING. Apart from the obvious fun, games are used in session for several important reasons that targets a range of skills in the areas of: receptive and expressive language, articulation, phonology, motor speech, fluency, voice, and social communication skills. One of our favorite games at TALK is Guess Who, which is an engaging game that incorporates a range of concepts.

Guess Who is a great way to reward our kids while practicing their skills. The game itself targets a wide range of speech and language development goals. Let’s break it down by some areas:

Receptive/Expressive Language:

· Basic concepts (e.g., boy/girl, colors, etc.)

· Following directions

· Reasoning and processing

· Comprehension skills by responding to questions to put down the correct people in order to narrow down the choices

· Using descriptive vocabulary to gain specific information

· Forming yes/no questions (e.g., “Is your person a woman?”)

· Understanding and using negation (e.g., “My person doesn’t have glasses.”)

You can also create your own visuals to assist in asking questions, such as a visual aid for carrier phrases (e.g., “Does your person have ______?” or “He/she is wearing _______.”).

Articulation:

· Target speech sound errors at the structured conversation level

· The phonemes /s/ and /z/ are sounds that come up frequently in the game (e.g., “Does your person have a mustache?)

· The phoneme /r/ (e.g., “Is your person wearing a hat?”)

· Monitor in conversation when your child is not paying attention to their articulation

Fluency:

· Praise/reinforce smooth speech in the moment when asking questions

· Video tape your child during the game and watch it together after the game. Have him/her identify when smooth or bumpy speech was used

· Practice using smooth speech with learned stuttering modification and strategies (e.g., easy onset, pull out, cancellations, light articulatory contact, etc.)

Voice:

· Practice speaking rate, pitch and volume when asking and answering questions

Social Communication:

· Elicit turn-taking

· Encourage help and self-advocacy skills by reminding your child to ask for a repetition of the question or ask for clarification

Fortunately, Guess Who is very adaptable for specific goals. For example, create your own cards for each window to target verbs, places and nouns. You can even glue family members’ pictures on the back, and have your child ask social questions by formulating questions associated to their likes and dislikes (e.g., “Does your person like to play basketball?”). Games can easily be modified in therapy or at home to increase engagement. Modify the rules, instruction length or match concepts to what is most appropriate. The sky is the limit! The reward of playing games can help to encourage ongoing progress for overall success!

Guess Who Is Improving Their Speech and Language?!