Social Stories

Social Stories are a great way to target pragmatic/social difficulties you are having with a client or a child of your own.

One kid I worked with in my internship in the schools was TERRIFIED of pigeons. Like, would not walk within 100 ft. of them, and instead had to walk around the entire perimeter of the school to avoid them, terrified.

So, we wrote and "produced" :) a social story about Pigeons.

Here are a couple pictures of the finished product:

(Full text reads: Pigeons are friendly birds that like to eat worms and fly in the air. There are a lot of pigeons at X Elementary that I see when I walk around the school. They especially like to hang out around the cafeteria. I may not like pigeons, but I can walk by them without covering my ears. I can pass them calmly because I know they can't hurt me. I am brave around pigeons.)



On other pages we included pictures of the little boy so that he knew the book was about him.

After a couple days of reading it each session before working on other goals, he started to warm up to the birds. We no longer had to walk around the entire school and he even thought they were kinda cool.

We then had him take his own pictures of the pigeons and we added a page of his photography to the book:
He loved being involved in the process, and he got pretty dang close to those birds when trying to get a good pic. By the end of the semester, even though he wasn't wanting one for a pet, he definitely was more tolerant and less scared of them.

I also made a social story for a client who was having a lot of difficulty losing. Another story I made for my two year old son who was having a hard time sharing his toys with friends who came to our house. Both social stories were effective and helped to decrease undesired behaviors.

So try em out. I've been encouraged by their effectiveness.

Alphabet Knowledge

I discovered Lakeshore this summer on a break I had between clients. It was great for me, but not so great for our wallet (especially when I was already paying ASU for the clinical rotation, ha ha). Basically, Lakeshore is a teachers/speech pathologists/educators/moms dream store for teaching materials. It's the best.

My first visit I wanted to buy everything on the shelf. But, I controlled myself and only bought these two products:

These are tactile letters, and I only bought the uppercase ones (for now). The letters are textured with a rough, sand-paper feel. In school we learn that kids learn in many different ways. Generally, when you can present information to them in multiple modalities (visually, auditorily, tactily), they learn it easier/better/faster. That's why I love these letters. Kids can see and feel them simultaneously, and can really "get to know" the letters if you will.

My son and I played with them for hours yesterday and he loved them! He cried when he couldn't take them with him for his nap.


I also bought these lowercase letter cubes (though I bought a pack of 6 that are all over double the size of the ones pictured). These letter cubes are great because you can really play and have fun with the letters. My son and I would roll them back and forth to each other and then we'd hurry and try to find a specified letter on the cube. Or we just took turns rolling the dice and trying to get a specified letter. We also played a racing game where we lined 3 cubes up on the couch on one side of the room, went to the other side of the room, and then raced to get a specific letter. My son loved beating me and getting to the appropriate letter first.

Making learning fun will engage your child and help them to enjoy working with the letters at a young age.