Theme Therapy & A FREEBIE! {Guest Post}

Hey Friends!  I have an awesome guest post for you guys today from Shanda and Manda of Twin Sisters Speech And Language Therapy on a topic that I love…theme therapy!  You may remember my own post with a freebie theme therapy calendar from last summer, so you know I love it!  Plus, there is a patriotic themed freebie just in time for Memorial Day!

First, we would like to thank JENN for having us guest post on her fabulous blog today! We feel honored to be able to post on Crazy Speech World because we both think that she is a talented and marvelous speech language pathologist who has inspired us in our own work, and we’re sure she has done the same for many of you as well!

Today, we would like to post on the benefits of using thematic units in speech and language therapy sessions. We hope that you may be inspired to begin to use themes by reading this post because we think that having a weekly theme can be a fun, useful, and productive way to approach speech therapy sessions with children of all ages.

What is a thematic speech and language therapy unit? 

It is the integrated use of an interesting book, holiday, season, or topic of interest in a planned speech and language therapy session.  It allows for the cohesion of a variety of targeted speech, language, and literacy goals during one or several different speech therapy sessions. It is similar to the integrated teaching curriculum approach that early childhood educators have used for years to teach their children a variety of skills.  In fact, “teachers have used children's books, topics that interest children, and projects to motivate them and to teach them the necessary skills and concepts to be successful in school and life since the early onset of classroom teaching” (Benson 2013).

What are the benefits of using a thematic approach to therapy?

The benefits of using a thematic approach to speech therapy session are substantial.  That is because thematic teaching, “provides an environment that fosters and encourages process learning and active involvement” (Fisher, 1991).  Here is a list of some benefits of thematic learning that we have read in literature and have seen happen at our clinic:

1)      Themes provide a functional foundation for learning and that equals good carryover beyond the therapy room.

2)      Themes help children relate to real-life experiences and build on what they know because a lot of independent experiences are brought up by the students and then reinforced by the activities and therapist.

3)      Thematic units help to make connections to transfer knowledge they learn and apply it in a meaningful way.  This is seen with the completion of a project or recipe that represents the theme being focused on.

4)      Themes help to teach facts to children in a fun way.  Facts presented randomly would probably be harder to grasp and uninteresting to the student.

5)      Themes help the student to become physically involved with learning.  This is something that is especially important for the children we see who have ADD, Autism, or SI disorders and who actually have to move in order to stimulate their brains for learning.   Some children are truly kinesthetic learners and sitting for long periods of time is not the best way for them to learn.

6)      Themes help the therapist to target a lot of individual student needs and goals.  Every child has a wide variety of goals that we are usually targeting at one time and that is why when we are planning on doing a themed unit we will make a variety of activities available for the taking!  For example, a sequencing activity, a listening for detail activity, a social pragmatic goal, an articulation activity, a literacy and number activity, a concept and preposition activity, a grammar activity, and more…

7)      Themes are motivating and relevant to the child.  We know this to be true because the students at the clinic ask what the theme will be each week and look forward to coming.  We’ve been told by more than one child that they would rather come to speech therapy than do anything else.  They have fun experiencing the themes and they learn at the same time!

8)      Mostly, themes are fun and make therapy interesting and new each session for the children!  That is why we enjoy providing themed speech and language units!!

What are some examples of thematic speech therapy sessions?

Examples of thematic units that we have used at our clinic include: dinosaurs, space, wild animals/zoo, pets, ocean, camping, Cinco De Mayo, fire station, transportation, super hero, snowmen, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, President’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and so many more!  The list of possible themes is quite large.

Where do you get your ideas and supplies for your themed speech therapy units?

We gather information and supplies from a variety of sources.  To start, we often make our own themed speech; language and literacy units with cute clip art obtained at places like Scrappin Doodles or Graphics From the Pond, and will use that material during or themed speech therapy sessions.  Please click on our themed speech and language units tab at our blog, Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy, to see what we have made.

We also look for a different materials made by fellow speech language pathologists on TpT, Pinterest, or Facebook. We go to on-line teaching sources like Ed Helper, Free Printables, Enchanted Learning, and Education.com.  Another wonderful place for free themed printables can be found at 1plus1plus1.   Our favorite place to buy crafts at a reasonable price is Oriental Trading Company. Our favorite maker of puzzles, educational toys, and sticker scenes is Mellissa and Doug.  We also hit up our local Dollar Store, Wal-Mart, Target, or grocery store to buy needed items to finish off our units.

Next week we are featuring a Memorial Day theme at our clinic.  It will contain a lot of colorful flags and patriotic games and activities.  Maybe this post will inspire you to do an inspirational Memorial Day themed speech therapy themed week as well?  We have provided a link to our freebie that could be used in any patriotic themed week, such as Memorial Day, President’s Day or July 4^th. We hope it will turn into a fun and useful document for many of you to use on each or every one of these colorful and meaningful American themed holidays!  Use this LINK  to download your copy of Patriotic Pronouns and Prepositions!

Why don't you give the idea of incorporating a theme to your therapy room a try?  We think that it will be a lot of fun for you and we're betting that your student's will find it fun and beneficial too!

Please come and visit Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy.  Find us at:
TSSALT BLOG SITE, TSSALT ON FACEBOOK, TSSALT AT TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS, TSSALT AT PINTEREST

Thank you so much for your support!
Shanda Gaunt M.S. CCC/SLP and Manda Riebel M.A. CCC/SLP

References
· Fisher, B. (1991). Joyful Learning: A Whole Language Kindergarten. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.
· Integrated Teaching Units article written by Tammy R. Benson, Ed D, Information taken on 5/9/2013 from http://www.pbs.org/teachers/earlychildhood/articles/integratedunits.html