Using Movement Activities & Relaxation Techniques in Speech Therapy


If you're like me, you love to switch things up every now and then in your speech therapy session!
So many of my students tell me how much they love gym or enjoy going to soccer. Others simply can't sit still for an entire session! That's why I love to use movement activities!
A ton of students on my caseload are working on following directions. Now, I'm not one to bash worksheets at all. In fact, I find that I can target very, very specific objectives with worksheets and can do so in a way that many of my students find fun. However, sometimes you just don't want to sit at the table for an entire session.
I took a look at the following directions goals many of my students had. A ton of them are working on multi-step directions, and many find it challenging to work on instructions containing concepts such as "before" and "after". I thought- why not let the directions contain the same stretches or movements they get to do in soccer?

Depending on your student, you might also find it beneficial to introduce deep muscle relaxation strategies. Some of my students enjoyed this as opposed to arm circles and jumping! I found these pictures or explanations of deep muscle strategies on websites such as gettyimages.com, popsugar.com, stress.lovetoknow.com, southmountainrehab.com, and handsonscotland.co.uk. I cannot share these images with you because I don't own the copyrights, but be sure to check out their websites for awesome resources if you choose to recreate these activities!
I also used these activities with my articulation students. It's easy to modify depending on their level. For some students, I had them say their target words a certain number of repetitions before completing an activity. For others, I had them say their target words in sentences.

This is a fun way to get your kids moving- and an easy way to target objectives in mixed language/ articulation groups as well! As you can see, I store this fun activity right on the wall under a "Take a Break" sign! My kids are so intrigued by this, and I bet yours will be too!
Have fun SLPs, and keep on moving! :)

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