speech therapy

Jaw Sliding Speech Therapy: Helpful Ark Therapeutic Tools

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Improving the Foundation for Speech & Feeding Development

The jaw is the foundation in the house of speech musculature. Working on chewing helps improve jaw stability and strength to support both feeding and speech sound productions. Speech pathologists can help your child eliminate jaw sliding through jaw sliding speech therapy using a variety of oral motor tools. Before walking, infants must learn to crawl, developing muscles and coordination necessary for balancing and moving on two limbs.

Young girl eating carrot in jaw sliding speech therapy

The same can be said for speech sound productions. Children who do not chew various textures and/or have motor speech delays may not appropriately develop a stable, supportive base for lip and tongue movements, so sometimes it is necessary to teach a child how to stabilize and strengthen the jaw. We do this through oral motor work using tools known as Grabbers. Thankfully, Ark Therapeutic has helpful tools we need to eliminate jaw sliding in speech therapy. Years ago, the owner sent me tools tailored to my caseload needs for a hands-on review, free of charge.

Grabbers for Jaw Sliding Speech Therapy

Oral Motor tools for jaw sliding speech therapy

Over the last two decades, I have purchased materials from Ark Therapeutic, who sell a large variety of Grabbers to assist with jaw stability, biting, chewing, and tongue coordination. These tools are perfect for children who do not need gentle vibration, but benefit from any of the following:

  • Alternatives to chewing on hazardous non-food items
  • Decreasing grinding teeth and/or biting knuckles and fingers
  • Transitioning from pureed (pudding) to foods with more lumps/ textures
  • Increasing mouthing for feeding and/ or speech development
  • Improving lip and tongue control
  • Establishing the idea of biting and chewing
  • Strengthening the jaw in stability and control

There are several different types of Grabbers to meet your child’s needs from those with smooth narrow parts that suit tiny oral cavities to those with harder textures for older clients. You can even purchase textured grabbers for additional mouth input. Consult with your speech pathologist about the right match for your child.

Z-Grabber for Increased Stimulation

Z Grabber for jaw sliding speech therapy

The Z-Grabber is a vibrating chew tool that combines the best of both worlds, vibration (Z-Vibe) and chewing (Grabber) in one. You can either use the loop end as a handle or for chewing exercises. Your speech pathologist will use this vibrating option to provide more sensory input/information to support feeding and speech skills.

Practice biting with a Z-Grabber: Place it on molars, do a 3-5 second bite and hold, 10 times on each side. You want to make sure that he is not tilting his head back to bite. As children progress in their ability to hold that position without sliding the jaw, then I increase the challenge by gently tugging the Z-Grabber to provide an increased, jaw workout.

The multi-functional Z-Grabber allows you to switch a variety of probe tips on the opposite end of the grabber portion. With over 35 tips available, there is something for every child in various shapes, sizes, scents, textures, and resiliencies. Though various methods exist, I’ll offer only a few examples of jaw strengthening exercises using these tips.

Z-Grabber Tips for Jaw Sliding Speech Therapy

Bite-n-Chew Tip for jaw sliding speech therapy

Bite-n-Chew Tip: This tip is a great option for children who have a hard time starting with the Z-Grabber as it is smooth and more flexible. Align this tip laterally on your child’s lower molars, then gently press down to lower the jaw and hold. Tell you child to push up as you press down. Repeat this exercise 3-5 times on each side.

Bite-n-Chew Tip XL for jaw sliding speech therapy

Bite-n-Chew Tip XL: This tip is an inch longer than the one above to help reach all the way back to the molars. It is also available in a textured version if your child needs even more input. Place either of these tips lengthwise along the molar surface one side at a time. Next, move the tip front-to-back and back-and-forth across the molars for 3-5 reps per side.

Animal tips for jaw sliding speech therapy

Animal Tips: There are three, friendly shapes for this tip of a cat, mouse, or dog with any of them appropriate for feeding or jaw work. You can perform similar jaw work as mentioned above using these tips. The ears on each double as spoons!

Concluding Thoughts About Jaw Sliding Speech Therapy

While there are many options with and without vibration for working on improving jaw strength and stability, I hope that this post helped defined some of the basics. Always consult with your child’s speech pathologist about the necessity of using oral motor products before making an investment.

For more information on oral motor “wake up” routines that can be performed before feeding or speech practice, head to this post.

Cooking up Fun with Food-Themed Pediatric Speech Therapy

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Inexpensive Pediatric Speech Therapy Materials

Delve into the deliciously effective world of food-themed pediatric speech therapy! From vocabulary expansion to articulation practice, discover how incorporating food can enhance engagement and communication skills in therapy sessions. In this blog post, I will explore creative activities, effective strategies, and the mouth-watering benefits of using food as a tool for speech and language development. Get ready to spice up your therapy sessions and satisfy your speech goals with a side of culinary fun!

Condiment Flashcards

I typically find die cuts like the ketchup and mustard ones pictured below at the Dollar Tree.  These are a quick and easy way to create flashcards.  I used the condiments ones to make an association memory game.   In keeping with the theme, all the word pairs were food related. The burger cards were meant to be coasters, but I used them for retelling stories and sequencing tasks.  I also kept extra picnic-themed paper plates and popcorn containers on hand for both decorative purposes and for use in sorting activities.

Food-themed pediatric speech therapy materials

I Scream, You Scream

The FREE ice cream lesson pictured below came from Jenn at Crazy Speech World. She put together this fun noun and verb matching game for sentence construction. I edited some verbs to address irregular tense and picked up these mini decorative trays that reminded me of an ice cream parlor.

Food-themed pediatric speech therapy ice cream sentences

Popcorn

At the end of last school year, I had many requests to repeat a popcorn lesson that I found at Speech Time Fun. You can find this freebie that targets naming synonyms here.  All my students especially loved using the elephant card that caused you to put back all the popcorn that you had collected during game play. I used my Dollar Tree popcorn buckets for students to collect their popcorn pictures.

Food-themed pediatric speech therapy popcorn game

Pediatric Speech Therapy Game Changers

I also had a couple games that I found at Job Lot in Massachusetts years ago. The one below targeted using social manners and it came with the adorable picnic basket and blanket. I could easily work on vocabulary and turn taking with this gem.

Food-themed pediatric speech therapy picnic manners game

The other Job Let find was a pizza game that focused on listening skills. It came with the items pictured below plus an additional pizza in a box. The object was to follow directions by accurately placing tokens with pictures on them onto the pizza. If you followed directions accurately, then you moved ahead on the large pizza spatula board.

Food-themed pediatric speech therapy pizza listening game

Pediatric Speech Therapy TpT Materials

But wait, there’s more!  I purchased one of the “Moore” bundles on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) that included several food themed lesson plans all to benefit the therapists who lost supplies following a devastating tornado. First up, was from one of my all time favorite bloggers, Rose at Speech Snacks. Her donation to the bundle was a restaurant package that included a fun game board with cards, categorization drills, auditory processing activities, and using manners. Never fear, you can buy yours here!

Yet, another score from my TPT “Moore” bundle purchase came from, The Buckeye Speech Path. This ‘Build a Pizza’ activity was an open ended speech game that you can purchase here on TPT.

As you can see, I created a binder full of food lesson plans for this unit. The next one was a barrier game freebie from Carrie’s Speech Corner using a lunch tray and some rather healthy food choices too.

Last, but not least, I created an activity to build expressive language skills using a lunch box theme. I took pictures of some items inside a lunch box to clip on the outside handle. Students needed to first describe the pictured object and then reach into the box with their eyes closed and feel around for it.

Food-themed pediatric speech therapy lunchbox game

Takeaway Thoughts

In conclusion, incorporating a food theme into speech and language sessions can be a tasty and effective way to engage and motivate clients of all ages. From building vocabulary to improving articulation and fostering social skills, the possibilities are endless. By tapping into the universal love for food, speech therapists can create meaningful and memorable experiences that promote communication growth. So, why not add a pinch of culinary creativity to your therapy toolkit and watch your clients flourish with each delicious session? Let’s savor the joy of learning and communication, one bite at a time!

Fun & Functional DIY Games to Play with Kids

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Are you looking for a fun and functional DIY games to play with kids? I can promise you that my seasonal category games will exceed your expectations. Using bags and items you have around the house, you can quickly create an electronic free way to engage with your child and foster language skills.

DIY games using mom's purse

DIY Games With Mom’s Purse

My love for bagging up objects started with this fun activity that I found on Make Learning Fun during Mother’s Day 2012.  Basically, you play a guessing game about items typically found in mom’s purse.  It was a HUGE hit with preschoolers and middle school students during the spring season, and it was easily adaptable.  All you need to do is search your home for a variety of items that are typically found in a mom’s purse.  I purchased most of my items at the Dollar Tree, bag included!

After your search for objects is over, take a picture or make a computer generated one for each item in the bag.  Then print, hole punch, and clip all pictures to your purse for safe keeping.  During the game, children take turns using just their hands to feel inside the bag for the picture target.  I like to set a timer for one minute to keep the game moving along. Older children can use descriptive words to talk about what item they are looking for while younger ones can reach in and search while you provide descriptors.  Here are some of the many speech and language goals that can be incorporated into this activity:

  • articulation practice at the word/ phrase/ sentence level
  • describing objects by function
  • discussing objects by shape/ size/ textures
  • using slow, smooth fluent speech to talk about object features
  • answering “why” questions about various bag contents

DIY Games Using Beach/Pool Bags

DIY games using pool bag

You can create a seasonal category game for the summer months too.  All you need to do is grab your pool or beach bag, which may already have plenty of items packed in it for the summer, and take a picture of each item.  Then, using contact paper, laminate the pictures and hole punch the stack.  You can use a round clip to attach the pictures to the handle of the bag.

Now, it’s time for some fun!  Following the cards in sequential order, have children take turns reaching into the bag to feel for the item on their picture.  Describe the item by size, shape, texture and more, prompting children to use descriptive words. My middle schoolers loved revisiting the guessing game after enjoying the “Mom’s Purse” activity during spring.

If you want to work on following descriptive directions, you can ask your children to locate the above items given clues, and then play the seek and find game later.  Below are some clues you can provide for items like the ones pictured above:

  • Find something made of plastic that helps us see underwater.
  • Get something in a hard can that protects our skin outside from the sun.
  • Find some small, bumpy treasures that we brought home from the beach.
  • Get the soft, large thing that dries us off.
  • Find three plastic things we can play with in the water. 

DIY Games with School Lunchbox

Since it’s harder to ask kids to reach into such a small space like a lunchbox and feel around for things, I created some “What am I” guessing cards.  Grab your level 1 card deck here.  If you are looking for something a bit more challenging, then snag your level 2 rhyming card deck at this link.

The contents of my lunchbox included: water bottle, spoon and fork, sandwich container, Ziploc bag, straw, note, and a napkin.   Once kids guess the object, have them search the lunchbox to retrieve the match.  I also took pictures of all objects in case I want to use this as a matching picture to object task for my preschool kids.  This is a perfect, fun game for your “Back to School” lesson planning and a great way to recycle your child’s former lunchbox!  Enjoy!!

Christmas Stocking

DIY Games for Christmas

I replaced typical gifts in a seasonal game with mini objects targeting speech sounds or vocabulary to enhance expressive skills. For suggestions and sources, see my post.

Given the number of targets that you may use with this game, I typically forego creating pictures as I have with my other guessing game bags.  Think of it this Christmas activity as a sensory bin without the box. For articulation practice, clients can pick one item at a time from the bin and say the word 3-5 times.  Language clients can describe the item retrieved, answer questions about it, or use the target in a sentence.  

Improve Reading Comprehension with Winter Literacy

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As the winter chill settles in, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with some winter-themed literacy activities to improve reading comprehension! Whether you’re a speech pathologist looking for engaging classroom resources or a parent eager to enhance your child’s reading skills at home, this winter literacy post (featured in ASHA 1/10/13) has you covered.

Exploring winter literacy with my elementary clients has been a delightful journey. During one winter break, I crafted several engaging lessons, pairing seasonal books with practical activities. Organizing these books can enhance thematic learning experiences and streamline access to resources for speech and language therapy sessions. For more details about my unique storing system, read my organization post.

Improve reading comprehension with Tracks in the Snow

Improve Reading Comprehension with: Tracks in the Snow

Tracks in the Snow by Wong Herbert Yee suits 1st and 2nd graders. It aids in teaching irregular past tense verbs. I decided to create a list using sentences with present tense verbs from the story.  Kids take turns changing verbs to past tense, earning animal track cards or tokens for correct answers. The person with the most tracks or tokens wins! You can grab your list here for Tracks in the Snow:

Improve reading comprehension with The Missing Mitten Mystery

Improve Reading Comprehension with: The Missing Mitten Mystery

My next book, The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg is a funny story about a little girl who retraces her steps outside in search of a missing mitten. I found this book by Scholastic for a quarter at my local library sale! Moreover, I needed a lesson for some 3rd graders that focused on simple comprehension questions following a short reading, and this book fit the bill! If you can find this book at your local library or bookstore, then you can use these comprehension questions!

Improve reading comprehension with In the Snow: Who's Been Here?

In the Snow: Who’s Been Here?

Another score at the library sale was, In the Snow: Who’s Been Here? by Lindsay Barrett George. I highly recommend borrowing or purchasing this book because each page gives clues about a winter animal that has crossed the trail in the woods just prior to the children’s walk. Great for vocabulary building and also for answering who/what questions!!

Improve reading comprehension with The Hat

Improve Reading Comprehension with: The Hat

The Hat by Jan Brett follows Hedgie the hedgehog as he gets a sock stuck on his prickles and faces the curiosity of other animals. As the story unfolds, readers discover how Hedgie’s predicament turns into a whimsical adventure. If you have not seen the FREE templates at www.makelearningfun.com that go along with the stories, The Mitten and The Hat both by Jan Brett, then you should follow this link to take a look!

Improve reading comprehension with Owl Moon

Improve Reading Comprehension with: Owl Moon

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen depicts a young girl and her father as they embark on a magical journey into the woods on a moonlit night. Together, they search for owls, experiencing the wonder and quiet beauty of nature. I found some great worksheets for this award winning story at this blogger’s TpT site.

Addendum 1/3/2013

After borrowing Katy and the Big Snow, I crafted a vocabulary lesson plan, prompted by a comment on this post. Follow this link for complete details.






FREE Seasonal Words That Have Multiple Meanings

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Pen circling a date on a calendar for planning teaching of words that have multiple meanings

One vocabulary area that seems to challenge many is: providing two or more different definitions for words that have multiple meanings. Targeting multiple meaning words over a few weeks isn’t enough; I’ll focus on them throughout the school year for measurable gains. So, I developed word banks for monthly calendars based on a seasonal activity, event, or category. I found that asking students to provide a definition relative to the theme was very helpful.

Lesson Plan

At the beginning of every session, each student would provide one definition for the day’s target word. Every Friday, I wrote “Review Day” on the calendar so students could pick whatever word they wanted from the past week.  Sometimes, there were small candy incentives for accurately providing at least two, different definitions.  Below are word banks you can use to make your own calendars.

Seasonal Words That Have Multiple Meanings

  • January (Hockey words): slip, icing, sticks, fans, ice, mask, uniform, slash, goal, net, line, slide, glass, coach, pass, shoot
  • February (Body Parts): head, ear, limb, hand, feet, nail, face, arms, foot, lash, gum, calf, back, arm
  • March (Baseball Words): bat, batter, pitcher, run, home, strike, ball, coach, hit, fan, plate, fly, diamond
  • April (Animal words): bark, duck, hog, bear, clam, fly, bug, fish, bat, snake, crane, chicken, monkey, pig, rat, badger
  • May (Action words): join, drive, straighten, play, grill, settle, observe, grasp, spare, take, spin, stand, fire, fix, beat, lose, shake, sign, miss
  • September (Things You May Find in Your Home): iron, key, light, bed, screen, shed, sink, yard, fan, entrance, deck, plant, table, pool, steps
  • October (Basketball): ball, hoop, court, coach, dribble, pass, shoot, basket, net, quarter, foul, travel, trip, charge, block, run, steal, fan, tie
  • November (Football): ball, tackle, coach, quarter, half, run, pass, field, guard, fan, wave, catch, practice, cover, down, flag, cheer
  • December (Holiday/ Seasonal words): cold, present, ice, star, shop, stockings, bow, trip, open, light, wrap, tag
January 2012 calendar image for lesson plan about words that have multiple meanings

10 SLP Apps that Stand the Test of Time

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Essential SLP Apps

I was given each of these SLP apps so I could put them to the test and offer a first person, hands on review.  This list of 10 apps that stand the test of time is meant to guide other educators and caregivers towards the apps that I have found to be most beneficial, not only when my son was younger, but also at work with clients on my pediatric, speech-language caseload. The ranking is in no particular order of preference.

Conversation Builder for Social Communication

Conversation Builder icon: SLP apps

Conversation Builder Teen ($29.99) by Mobile Education Store:  I cannot say enough about this dynamic app that supports improving social skills for teenagers! I have used  it with middle school clients diagnosed with autism. To say this app is a must have for anyone needing support with pragmatic skills would be a HUGE understatement!!

Tense Builder for Understanding Verbs

Tense Builder ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store:  This is another, fantastic app by Kyle Tomson. It addresses every, possible verb tense in a bright, entertaining way that the first graders in my life really enjoy. Users watch a short cartoon video and then match the appropriate picture to the target sentence. For a closer look at this gem, head to my detailed post here.

Syntax City App

Syntax City icon: SLP apps

Syntax City ($19.99) by Smarty Ears:  Great app that targets a good variety of syntax in a fun, categorical way. Visit several different locations in the city and earn prizes by choosing the correct word to complete sentences. Motivating, educational, and fun for my young, elementary students. I have more information and images to see of this app in my detailed review post.  

Rainbow Sentences: Recommended SLP Apps

Rainbow Sentences icon: SLP apps

Rainbow Sentences ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store:
The object of this game is to unscramble words to form grammatically correct sentences. It offers multiple settings and various levels of difficulty. I personally like how the mixed up words maintain the correct punctuation and capitalization, which act as clues for word ordering while offering visual reminders to use these techniques while writing too! Children earn pieces of a puzzle by answering several questions accurately.  I provide even more details and images in my post: Constructing Grammatically Correct Sentences with Rainbow Sentences app.

Preposition Builder App

Preposition Builder icon: SLP apps

Preposition Builder ($7.99) by Mobile Education Store:
What can I say, I’m a Mobile Education Store Fan! They cover all the speech language therapy bases!! This app teaches prepositions in related groups. Once you successfully fill-in the correct prepositions in all sentences, you unlock an opportunity to watch a short, animated video clip.

Articulation Station: The Greatest of all SLP Apps

Articulation Station (.99-$5.99) by Little Bee Speech:  The app itself comes free with oneArticulation Station: SLP apps target sound, /p/, and then you purchase other sounds at various prices. Speech pathologists will want the entire collection, while parents need only purchase sound targets applicable for their children.  No need to dig for flashcards because this puts them all in the palm of your hand. You can work at word, phrase, sentence, or story levels and set sound targets for all positions in words.  In addition to the flashcards, there are memory games built into every sound target, making carryover practice easy and fun!

Expressive: Robust AAC APP

Expressive icon: SLP appsExpressive ($59.99) by Smarty Ears apps: This is an affordable augmentative and alternative communication speech generating app primarily used for individuals who are minimally verbal.  For complete details and images, please see my post Expressive by Smarty Ears Apps- An Affordable AAC app.

Expressive Builder App

Expressive Builder ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store:  I use this app to address building grammatically and syntactically correct sentences. The levels of play make this a nice tool for teaching and assessing speech and language skills!

Custom Boards: A Versatile Tool in SLP Apps for Creating Visual Resources 

Custom Boards (PRICELESS) by Smarty Ears apps: Incredible, comprehensive, amazing, dynamic – these are just some of the descriptive words that came to describe this app!  Basically, Custom Boards allows you to create whatever you need for children of all ages using any of the 35,000 “Smarty Ears” symbols, your own library photos, or Google search images.  You can edit the text font, image size, and change the background colors for images to help them stand out more and create just about anything from Bingo games to daily routine visual schedules.

Little Stories: Literacy App for SLPs

Little Stories icon: SLP appsLittle Stories ($59.99) by Little Bee Speech:  It is impossible for me to tell you everything about this app in one paragraph, so I want you to download the free version and sample three stories for yourself.  You can target speech, language, and literacy in this dynamic app that contains 82 stories at tiered reading levels. Take a look at what you get with each story:

Reading & Literacy

  • Phonemic awareness
  • Reading fluency
  • Reading comprehension
  • Story structure awareness
  • Story tradition and genre exploration

Receptive Language Skills

  • Attention and listening
  • Vocabulary acquisition
  • Story structure and comprehension
  • Question processing

Expressive Language Skills

  • Speech production
  • Story sequencing
  • Story retelling
  • Question answering

Simple Speech Therapy Early Intervention Activity using Eggs

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Eggs with various interactive toys for speech therapy early intervention activity

Crack open the door to engaging speech and language development with our simple yet effective speech therapy early intervention activity using eggs! All you need are a dozen plastic eggs and small objects to fit inside each one. There’s something magical about finding mini treasures that delights children between the ages of two and five. I’ve used this activity during the spring/Easter season and beyond with great success! For more winning, speech therapy early intervention activities, head to this post.

Communicative Purpose in Speech Therapy Early Intervention

In the world of speech pathology, we often reference: communicative purpose.  These are the various ways that we express our intentions to connect with others.  The greatest thing about using this simple activity of filling plastic eggs with treasures, is that you can elicit several purposes for social communication.  Below is a sample of a speech session from start to finish using eggs filled with objects to tempt communication with young children:

  • Requesting object: indicating a choice for an egg with pointing, eye gaze, reaching, or vocalizing
  • Requesting assistance: reaching, signing, vocalizing, or expressing “help” to open an egg
  • Greeting: waving and/ or saying “hi/ hello, bye/ see ya” as you take objects in and out of eggs
  • Requesting action: gesturing and/ or vocalizing to say “go” after a verbal prompt of “Ready, set…” with a wind up toy; matchbox car/ small vehicle; or spring-loaded pop-up toy
  • Requesting continuance: gestures, signs, and/ or vocalizes “more”
  • Labeling: using a sound/ syllable/ word for famous characters like Elmo, Sponge Bob, and Dora
  • Commenting: using facial expressions, sounds (ew), words (yuck, wow) to make comments about sticky, slimy, gooey, messy things
  • Responding to questions: Potato Head pieces for naming and/ or identifying body parts
  • Protesting: shaking head “no”; pushing object away; placing it in an egg; or vocalizing “no”
  • Requesting termination: gesturing, signing, and/ or vocalizing “all done”

Treasure Hunt

While you may find many objects around your home, below are some great places to look for more items to fill in eggs.
  • The Dollar Tree typically has a wind up toy or two somewhere in the store or you can find bundles on Amazon.  I like having one of these in each sound box because they allow for a little more opportunity for target practice while you play with it.  You may also find magnet numbers, miniature animal figures, individually packaged specialty characters, and small Koosh objects at your local Dollar Tree store.
  • Target Dollar spots sometimes have mini object erasers in a pack of 4 for $1.  I found a fruit one on clearance for 30 cents that had a strawberry, banana, grapes, and a watermelon.  
  • Party stores often have trinkets for favors or decor for themed parties 
  • Walmart carries seasonal favors that are fairly priced.  I found a collection of stretchy body parts during Halloween a few years ago that the kids love.
  • IKEA sometimes carries animal finger puppets in a collection of 5-6 that are fun for varying play during a seek-and-find game.
  • Dinky Doodads on Etsy.

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