Games


 * How to Practice Speech and Language Skills at Home **


 * Entry 1 **

“**Guess Who?**” Board Game & iPAD APP, “**Who Are you?**” Android APP

Board Game Description: Each player has a board with windows that flip up to reveal 24 faces of men and women with their names written at the bottom. The game begins with all windows up. Each player draws from the deck a card displaying one of the faces on the board. The players do not show each other their cards. Players take turns asking questions about physical features of the face on their opponent’s card, e.g., //Does your person have red hair?// Or, //Is your person bald?// All questions must be answerable with 'yes' or 'no'; //What color is your person’s hair?// is not allowed. If the answer is 'no', the asker puts down all the people on his or her board that have red hair; if the answer is 'yes', the people with red hair stay up and those without red hair go down. Players take turns asking questions to narrow down the choices; the first player who correctly names the person on his or her opponent’s card is the winner.

Have your child answer using a full sentence, not a simple yes or no. There are four typical forms for an answer:
 * // Articulation/Speech Sounds //** . For children who are capable of accurately produce /s, z/ and/or /r/ sounds when consciously practicing, but mispronounce them in more spontaneous speaking situations, Guess Who can be a great exercise in learning to self-monitor. Have your child to ask all questions using one of two forms:
 * // Is your person _? //
 * // Does your person have _? //

A variation that better targets listening and comprehension play “//Guess Who?// Bingo.” Have one or two players plus a “caller.” Each player begins with all of the faces up on his or her board. The caller shuffles the cards, draws one at a time, and describes the physical features of the person on the card without saying the person’s name (e.g., “Bald with blue eyes and glasses”). The players must correctly identify the person described and turn down the corresponding picture on their boards. The first player to turn down a row of faces is the winner. You can also change it up with the standard Bingo variations, such as squares or four corners. With younger children and those who have never played //Guess Who?// before, it’s a good idea to bring in a second adult or an older child, and play as a “team” with your child against that person. That way, you can talk through your decisions and strategies, e.g.: //She says her person doesn’t have red hair. I want to leave her person standing up, so I’m going to leave the people who don’t have red hair standing up. I’ll put down all the people with red hair, because I know her person isn’t one of them//. As you play a few games this way, you can “fade” your support gradually and allow the child to do some of the decision-making.
 * // Yes, my person has _. //
 * // No, my person doesn’t have _. //
 * // Yes my person is _. //
 * // No, my person is not _. //
 * // Comprehension; Responding to questions //** . Playing the game as designed is a natural exercise in listening comprehension, as well as logical and deductive reasoning: players must understand each other’s questions and respond accurately. Also, the players must understand how to determine which faces get turned down and which remain up
 * // Comprehension; Responding to questions //** . Playing the game as designed is a natural exercise in listening comprehension, as well as logical and deductive reasoning: players must understand each other’s questions and respond accurately. Also, the players must understand how to determine which faces get turned down and which remain up


 * // Question formation //** . Forming yes/no questions in English involves inverting the subject (e.g., your person) with either the main verb (e.g., is, as in Is your person a woman?) or the auxiliary verb (e.g., does, as in Does your person have a beard?).

This game allows for practice with understanding categorization by salient features. If your child often communicates by pointing or uses a lot of non-specific vocabulary like //that, this//, or //thing//, playing //Guess Who?// can contribute to using more specific descriptions. Since players sit facing each other, your child will not be able to communicate with you by pointing at the pictures on his or her board. If this is a difficult thing for your child, it is a good idea to look at the cards together beforehand and warm up by discussing the characters’ distinguishing features. For example, you can sort the cards according to hair color, then talk about how they are similar: “Look, these all have brown hair, and these ones have black hair; tell me about these ones,” and point to the people with red hair. Then you can re-shuffle the cards and sort them according to another feature like eye color, baldness, gender, facial hair, glasses, hats, etc. This offers an opportunity to distinguish between concrete/objective descriptions (hair color, eye color, gender, presence/absence of glasses, beard, mustache, etc.) as opposed to more abstract/subjective descriptions, such as pretty, scary, cool, happy, etc Children can also work on descriptive vocabulary by drawing pairs of cards from the deck and taking turns describing ways they are the same or different.
 * // Describing salient features; subjective vs. objective //**.


 * How to Practice Speech and Language Skills at Home **
 * Entry 2 **

This game is played with one player acting as “judge” and flipping a green describing words [adjectives] card. The other players choose one of the picture cards in their hand which they think fits best with the adjectives on that green card, and puts it face-down on the table. The judge then chooses the red card they like the best, and the player who played it gets a point. The judge position rotates every round, so everyone gets a turn. ** THERE ARE SO MANY LANGUAGE OPPORTUNITIES IN THIS GAME! **  Adjectives and Synonym practice are just a small sample of language activities that this game will help develop.
 * “Big Picture Apples to Apples” **

For example, you work on ‘why’ questions by having the judge explain why she/he chose the winning card, or have the other players explain why they played each of their cards to try to convince the judge to chose their card. Encourage details in these descriptions.

You could work on naming things within a category by having the players come up with things that fit that green describing word card before they play their cards.

You can also discover the multiple meanings in the green describing words and create additional synonyms.

Many of the picture cards can be used for developing vivid describing skills, developing inferring skills, and/or creating stories with expected story grammar.

We can also work on turn-taking and expected winning/losing behaviors/language choices, while we are playing the game.

Remember to try to partner up participants with stronger language skills with those who have emerging language skills to keep the frustration level of a weaker participant in check.

Enjoy all the fun while learning a thing or two!


 * How to Practice Speech and Language Skills at Home**


 * Entry 3 **
 * "Modeling and Re-Casting"**

Modeling and Re-Casting are natural strategies that parents and teachers use as children develop language skills. Using these strategies in a more structured way helps children learn the specific language skill in a supportive way.

Modeling and Re-Casting are effective strategies in that they help focus the child on the language skill in need of repair without giving the child a negative response, (e.g."No, that's not right. You need to say it this way.)

When the child makes an error in a sentence you respond to them with the correct form, the child hears the correct form, and eventually the child will produce the correct form independently.

Providing a good production all the time requires you to use:
 * Modeling**
 * an unhurried speech rate
 * clear speech
 * short sentences
 * appropriate vocabulary
 * more repetition and restating than you would use if you were talking to an adult

This strategy used in place of asking the child to repeat or imitate what you say, and it can be used anytime the child is attempting to speak.

SELF TALK: talk out loud about what you are doing, seeing, hearing, or feeling. PARALLEL TALK: talk aloud about what is happening to the child. Use words that describe what they are doing, seeing, or hearing. EXPANSION: add extra words or phrases to what the child said. Let them hear the right order and grammar. PRAISE: respond quickly to the child's attempts to use their language skills by using positive verbal and nonverbal responses.

Repeat a sentence that corrects an error the child has made or expand the sentence that the child has produced. Re-Casting provides: Do not make the child repeat the corrected sentence. The main idea is to "feed" the child the correct form back to the child to let them hear it. This should occur as naturally as possible as part of a conversation.
 * Re-Casting**
 * immediate feedback
 * maintains the meaning and the topic of interest.

Aim for 12-18 recasts per minute, 3-4 times a day for the //same// word or //same// language structure. That sure sounds like an awful lot! See the example below: // Child: Daddy, I want a Superman tape. // // Adult: A Superman cape. You do? Cape, cape, cape, cape, cape. A Superman cape. Now, what colour is Superman’s cape? Is it a blue cape, or a black cape, or a white cape or a stripy cape, or a spotty cape (12) or a red cape? Yes, a red cape! So we need red cape material. Do you want it to be a long cape or a short cape? You’re going to have to tell me how it should be because I haven’t made a cape (18) before. //