5 Go-To Speech Therapy Resources for Speech Pathologists
As a Speech Pathologist, you always need to have engaging speech therapy resources on hand to include in your sessions. But, over time, you might get a bit stuck for inspiration – you might be in that situation right now! If you’re looking for some fresh therapy resource ideas, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’re going to share five of our go-to speech therapy resources for Speech Pathologists. These are resources that our Speech Pathologists, at SpeechEase Speech Therapy, use and recommend. We’ll also give you some ideas on how you can use each of these speech therapy resources in sessions to target specific client goal areas.
So, what are you waiting for? Scroll down to discover five of our go-to speech therapy resources.
5 Go-To Speech Therapy Resources:
Play Doh
Let’s start with something simple, easy to use, and guaranteed to engage the younger kiddos on your caseload. Play Doh is a favourite of many Speech Pathologists because you can use it in so many different ways. Kelsey, one of our clinicians at our Mackay clinic, enjoys using Play Doh when targeting verbs, adjectives, plurals and tense with her clients.
Play Doh is a great tool for speech therapy sessions targeting language, but that’s not all! We have also seen our clinicians use Play Doh creatively by using plastic cookie cutters to create shapes that are then used to indicate when a word has been correctly articulated during a speech-focused session (example below).
You could also use playdough to create letter shapes for targeting literacy skills. The sky really is the limit when it comes to using Play Doh in speech therapy sessions. Just make sure to keep things hygienic by getting your client to sanitise their hands (and sanitising your own!) before and after use. In our clinics at SpeechEase, we like to take this one step further and have dedicated Play Doh tubs for each of our clinicians.
Lunch Box
One of our go-to resources for Speech Pathologists is the Orchard Toys game, Lunch Box. Featuring bright and bold illustrations and simple gameplay instructions, Lunch Box can be used either ‘by the books’ or with the game pieces being used in other creative ways.
Amiee, one of our Speech Pathologists in Townsville, has been using the Lunch Box game to target multiple client goals! To start, she incorporated the Lunch Box game pieces into speech trials where the cards were put on top of minimal pair cards. In another client session, Amiee used Lunch Box to practice social communication skills like turn taking and to expand utterance length (e.g. I found X, I want X). If you need something new to add to your resource cupboard, we’d highly recommend adding this game to your shopping list!
Word Wall
If you are looking for digital speech therapy resources for telehealth sessions or for clients that prefer digital games, you’ll love this recommendation! Georgiana, one of our Speech Pathologists in Mackay, has been loving the WordWall website after being recommended it by one of her Mackay-based teammates.
WordWall offers a variety of interactive games that you can use in your speech therapy sessions to target different client goals. For Georgiana, she loves using WordWall’s “Whack a Mole” game for her clients with articulation goals by whacking the mole when the client uses the right sound. There are even some interactive minimal pair activities that you can try out!
Mr Potato Head
We are pretty sure you’ll be familiar with this speech therapy resource, but we can’t make a go-to list without recommending it! Mr Potato Head is a staple in just about every paediatric speech therapy clinic and there’s good reason for it. Mr Potato Head is a fun, familiar ‘face’ for many paediatric clients and can instantly make them feel comfortable and excited to engage in speech therapy activities.
Mr Potato Head encourages active participation from clients and allows them to get ‘hands on’ with a game and enjoy a visual representation of their progress throughout a session. Natasha (or ‘Tash’), one of our Speech Pathologists, loves using Mr Potato Head for early language stimulation. Mr Potato Head can be used to expand vocabulary and practice prepositions like ‘in’, ‘on’ and ‘below’. But of course, that’s just the start of it! Have a look around online for more inspiration on how you can use Mr Potato Head in speech therapy sessions.
Spot It!
The last therapy resource we’d like to share with you is a game called Spot It. It’s one of our go-to speech therapy resources across all SpeechEase Speech Therapy clinics – seriously, we have multiple of them in each resource cupboard! Joanne, one of our Speech Pathologists in Townsville, has really enjoyed using this resource with clients who are having difficulties with their s-clusters.
She’ll use Spot It in a slightly different way, focusing on getting her clients to say ‘Spot It!’ and point to the cards to target their s-cluster speech therapy goals.
We hope you’ve found some fresh inspiration for your speech therapy session planning. If you already have these resources in your resource cupboard – great! If not, it might be time to put together a list of new resources to add to your clinic. Did someone say Kmart shopping spree?
For more Speech Pathology career tips and inspiration, have a read of our blog.