House of Krause

No matter how simple or how complex you make it, this is an awesome language toy! This is an activity we use at Speech.  Luke got one for his birthday. This is another Lakeshore toy.  It is meant to help children learn to read and rhyme hence the name ‘Rhyme and Read’ but it works great for Apraxia. This activity contains sentence strips and the cutest little figures to fill in the blanks. In the beginning we used it in a simple way by breaking it down to a simple form. Luke would need it scripted for him, one word at a time.

Example; Bee, in, tree/  frog, on, log/ cat, in, hat/ ect.

Now we are adding in all those extra little words. Still scripting most of the time. But Luke can connect 2-3 words on his own. We just spent an hour having fun with this new toy. You can forget the sentence strips and just put together different objects. There are endless combination’s.

I also like pointing to the words to introduce Luke to reading. I am told children with Apraxia often have a hard time rhyming words in school. I figure why not get a head start with it.

Love this activity. Encourages a lot of talking. Seriously!

Our Speech Homework

Now it’s time to add back in some of those little words that children with Apraxia usually leave out.

We made this collage to practice over and over with.

She is cooking.

He is swinging.

She is sleeping.

She is eating.

He is painting.

(They are also very interested in it because they helped to make it.)

These are great little speech toys. If you ever watch Nancy Kaufman work, she likes the wind ups.  We started our collection when we started speech. Practice words, get fun little rewards. When I attended the Nancy Kaufman Apraxia conference she talked about finding your child’s to-die-for items. Finding things that really motivate them. Favorites. When we first started speech it would break my heart that Luke would have to work for the toys he wanted to play with. Really though they quickly learn what they have to try to get what they want.

Making home made flash cards is a fun easy way to help your child learn to say words that are relevant in their life! So much of learning process with Apraxia is visual cues. We use the Kaufman cards along with our home made cards. What we did is just go around taking pictures of everything that Luke uses and finds important in his daily life. Everything from his bed, bath tub, toothbrush, shoes, socks, juice, milk, pets, siblings, books, toys, anything that he would desire to say. Then I took the cards to Luke’s speech therapist and had her break down the words to their simplest form. She broke the words down from basic all the way up to two word phrases.  They are very helpful.

Just an idea……..