First a little about me! My name is Lydia Gaster and I am a pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist. I currently work with 2-5 year old children who have a variety of delays or disabilities. However, first and foremost they are KIDS!!! They love toys and so do I!!!
My intention is to share old and new toys and showcase ways to use these toys to teach speech skills, motor skills, and general learning. This blog is for ANYONE who works with children.
Today I start with an old time favorite...Mr. Potato Head! Recently I found a Birthday Hat for my Potato Head. Needless to say, it has been a big hit. In addition to doing the obvious like naming and identifying body parts, now I can add an entire play scheme related to a Birthday Party. Everyone of my children have loved joining in singing Happy Birthday to Mr. Potato head. We also pulled out a Melissa and Doug Birthday cake and put on the candles and counted them. There you have it, by adding just one type of hat, I am able to branch off and target the following words and concepts in my therapy session: body part names, singing Happy Birthday, candles, Birthday cake, putting on candles (fine motor), counting, blowing out the candles (oral motor), and prepositions like "on" or "off", and the term for completion "all done"!
For my nonverbal kids, I have a picture symbol board that they can use to request each body part. I have used the app Verbal Victor on the ipad to take pictures of the body parts so that they can use photos and voice output to help assemble Mr. Potato Head!
In upcoming blogs, I will talk more about using other toys and augmentative communication strategies!
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