Abstract
This book was written by speech and language therapists and consists of over 140 games and activities that cover all aspects of communication. The authors have graded the activities by difficulty following developmental norms, providing a useful resource for anyone working with children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). The authors developed these activities over years of working in clinics making them realistic and manageable and giving the user the confidence to know they have been tried and tested; this is valuable in these times when evidence-based interventions are sought after. The resources are photocopiable and, although developed in a clinic, would be accessible in mainstream schools and also at home.
The activities fall into the following categories: Attention and Listening; Understanding and Memory; Expressive Language; Vocabulary, Concepts and Word-Finding; Problem-Solving and Verbal Reasoning; Sequencing and Narrative; Phonological Awareness; and Social Communication. A resource list, the time required to deliver and the exact instructions are given for each activity, plus the main aim and execution of each activity, together with suggestions for some activities to make them easier or harder.
For those wanting to set up language groups for the first time there is a section giving information on how to do this, including thoughts about group size, accommodation, the personalities of the children and planning the sessions. There is a hand-out giving instructions on how to develop good communication via the adult’s behaviour, which is a very valuable tool for staff new to speech and language as well as those with more experience.
Another hand-out talks about carry-over to the classroom. This is a little one-sided in that it emphasizes the class teacher backing up the work going on in the group and could be improved by making sure the person using the activities links them to the priorities of the classroom rather than focusing solely on choosing activities, and then making sure the teacher is aware of the target. Good collaboration and making sure activities suit the needs and priorities of the children at the current time is essential. This hand-out has carry-over in to the home in its title too but it would benefit from more advice on this aspect as working in the home is very different to working at school.
The staff who tried out the book found the activities very easy to understand and carry out with minimal preparation and liked the tips that many of them have for making the activity harder. They did find that the content of the activities did not link directly to the curriculum without some modification, but they found this fairly easy to do. The assistants commented that some of the aims were a little vague and confusing; e.g. the difference between ‘to identify items which are semantically linked’ and ‘to identify items that are semantically associated’ was a bit too subtle for them to understand. The teachers found they needed to take the aims of many of the tasks and convert them into smart targets that were more measurable, but they found the book a very useful basis and were able to link some of the tasks to the targets that had been set by their local speech and language therapist.
All in all, the book was well received and the children enjoyed the activities once the staff had found the right levels for each child. There are so many activities to choose from that they were able to find something for each targeted child, and the assistants found it very clear and easy to follow, guessing that it might last them quite a few months of regular sessions. The children they tried it on ranged from year 2 to year 4 (approximately 6–9 years of age), and they found it fairly easy to adapt to each age group but did change some of the vocabulary to fit in with the current class topic as well as to suit the children’s interests. The teachers found it useful for whole class lesson warm-up ideas too, thus identifying some children who were having difficulties who had hitherto slipped through the identification net.
In conclusion there is a lot of information and practical advice for those needing to advance the communication skills of primary aged children, and the price is reasonable given the amount of information in the book.