Speech Therapy Oops!

September 30, 2015

Today, Tracy from Gold Country SLP is going to share her Speech Therapy Oops with you!

Thank you to my friend Karen, The Pedi Speechie for suggesting this topic and hosting those of us who are brave enough to talk about mistakes made during speech therapy sessions. No one is perfect--we all make mistakes!

Who has heard of the game Apples to Apples? It's a lot of fun right? Great for communication, right? Yes. Well, maybe. There is a version of the game called Apples to Apples, Big Picture. It is a wordless, picture version of the game. Sounded great to me. I ordered it and decided to try it out with my sixth grade fluency student. We needed something new for therapy.

My student was very excited to try the new game. I dealt the cards. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, each player has a "hand" of picture cards and there is a separate deck of word definition cards. One player flips over a definition card and each player tries to find the picture card in their hand that most closely matches the definition. The person whose card most closely matches the word given, wins the round.

We played a couple of rounds, then a new round was dealt. My student had an odd look on his face when he picked up his cards. I asked him, "What is wrong?" He showed me one of his cards. It was an odd picture and I wondered what else was in this deck of cards! I stopped the game and set it aside.

After he left, I went through every single one of the 463 cards and found several that I thought were inappropriate for kids. Keep in mind that this game is advertised for families and kids as young as seven! Here are some more examples of what I found.

A broken mannequin in a garbage can? How is that appropriate for young kids? A vulture flying with a skull in its talons? Disturbing. A face wrapped completely in gauze with a hat and coat? Unsettling.

I pulled out about 35-40 cards that, in my opinion, were not appropriate for children. Having said that, there IS a silver lining. While some of the pictures were best removed, what was left were over 400 photos that are GREAT for therapy with kids! The remaining photos are multi-cultural, show occupations, actions, animals, geographical landmarks from all over the world as well as cultural items.

Additionally, there are photos depicting problem solving situations as well as determining what another person might be thinking. Perfect for use with students who need practice with those skills.