Welcome To Holland-a beautiful poem describing what it's like having a child with special needs

Welcome to Holland
By Emily Perl Kingsley (1987)

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." 

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Parking Lot Sight Word Game

I use this game to target sight words...but it could be used to target several other speech-language topics.

What are sight words anyway? Sight words are commonly used words that young kids are encouraged to memorize.  Memorization of these simple words will help with reading down the road.

What you'll need:

• Toy Car
• Parking lot board (feel free to drag the photo of my board into a word document or create your own!)

In Therapy:
Tell your client a sight word and have him "park" his toy car into the correct parking space.
Example below:

Say the word "and"

Have your client park his car into the "and" space

 

This activity is super easy to create and kids love it!  A great way to get them to start memorizing their sight words.

Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes

We targeted past tense regular verbs with these fun thanksgiving turkey cupcakes!

What you'll need:

• Cupcake mix (and other ingredients per instructions on packet)
• Frosting (I used chocolate)
• M&Ms (for the eyes)
• Candy corn (for the feathers and beak)
• Cupcake liners
• Cupcake holder/paper plate
• Knife to spread the frosting

Preparation:
You'll need to bake the actual cupcakes in advance (unless you have access to an oven and lots of time with your client in therapy)

Note: Due to time constraints in therapy, I actually baked, frosted, and decorated most of the cupcakes in advance.  My client frosted and decorated only 2 cupcakes in therapy, allowing  time for maximum verb production.

In Therapy: 
I guided my client in decorating his cupcakes.  I would give him an action to perform, containing a verb, for example "frost the cupcake".  After he performed the task I would ask him "what did you do?" to elicit a past tense verb response ("I frosted the cupcake").

Below are the steps that we took to decorate our cupcakes, including the different verbs that I elicited:

• We washed our hands before starting   
• He scooped the frosting onto his knife
• He frosted the cupcake
• He then opened the bag of M&Ms
• And poured the M&Ms onto a paper plate
• He dropped the M&Ms onto the cupcake for the turkey's eyes
• Then he counted 5 candy corn from the bag
• He placed the candy corn on the turkey for the feathers and the beak
• He tasted a cupcake!

You get the idea...there are countless opportunities to target past tense verbs here!

This was a great hands on activity that helped my client really grasp the idea of past tense verbs and allowed him to put them into practice in a practical way.

He brought the cupcakes to snack-time after our session and shared them with his classmates.  They were a hit!

Piggy Bank Verb Game

Target:
I used this game to target past tense regular verbs...but it could be easily modified to target sight words, specific sounds in words, or other verbs.

What You'll Need:

• Paper dollar bills with verbs written on the back
• 3 paper pigs (labeled "t", "d", and "id" for the three regular past tense verb endings)
• Tape or sticky tack

Preparation:

Create fake money out of green paper.  Write target words on the back of each dollar.  I was targeting regular past tense verbs so I wrote words such as "look", "walk", "call", and "start".










Create piggy banks out of pink paper. Since my past tense verbs fell into 3 categories, verbs ending in the "t", "d", and "id" sounds, I made 3 piggy banks.

Before therapy, "hide" your dollar bills around the room as shown below.

Attach your piggy banks to the wall or a white board.  Label them if necessary.

How to Play: 
Let your client search the room for a dollar bill.  Once they find one have them produce the verb on the back ("walk"-> "walked") and place the money in the appropriate piggy bank.

For a fun twist, write "bankrupt" on the back of a few of the dollar bills.  If your client selects a "bankrupt" dollar they must empty one of their piggy banks.

This activity is super easy to set up and clients love the idea of collecting something of value and storing it in their piggy banks.  I have found little games like these to be great motivators for kids, instead of having to use actual prizes or food.

Therasimplicity

As a student, I have been given temporary access to the website therasimplicity.com.
For those who have never heard of it, it's a website for therapists which features several pre-made worksheets and customizable templates to download and print.  

It targets different scopes of communication including pragmatics, swallowing, reading, fluency, speech, and voice.

Below, I have highlighted some of my favorite aspects of the site!

TheraGames:

• Start to finish games-In therapy I would write target words in the spaces and would use it like a game board.  For example if my client landed on "rabbit" he would have to say "rabbit" 3 times with a good "r" sound to stay on the space.

• Bingo-Bingo boards have the option of adding pictures or words to the spaces to target specific sounds/words in therapy.

TheraTools:

• Pennies of praise-These sheets are great motivational tools for therapy.  Clients can be awarded pennies for good behavior or accurate productions.  They love placing their pennies on their fun worksheets.

• I did it!-These are super fun motivational activities! Cut out the animal's head and stick it onto a paper bag. Kids love "feeding" the animals.

TheraEducate: This section includes tons of handouts describing different communication disorders.  It also provides parent handouts that can be given to the parents of clients.

Check out Therasimplicity with a 14 day free trial!

Sequencing with Mr. Potato Head

What you'll need:

• Mr. Potato Head
• Camera to take pictures of Mr. Potato Head in different stages of assembly which are then turned into sequencing cards (optional)

Mr. Potato Head is a great way to target sequencing.  Kids love playing with him and it's a neat alternative to using boring sequencing cards.  Sequencing becomes much more realistic and easy to relate to when they are able to physically put it into practice.

Start off by taking pictures of Mr. Potato Head in a sequence.
In the image above I have taken pictures of Mr. Potato Head with feet, arms, eyes, and a nose and mouth.

First, have your client put the cards in order.  Then allow him to reenact each step.  Have him describe what he is doing as he assembles Mr. Potato Head.

EX:
1) "First, put I put his feet on"
2) "Next, I put him arms on"
3) "Then, I put his eyes on"
4) "Lastly, I put his nose and mouth on"

To maximize production, I have my client repeat all 4 steps after he has assembled Mr. Potato Head.

You don't necessarily need to make sequencing cards!  Another way to use Mr. Potato Head is to have your client assemble him in his own way (shoes for example, then eyes, then a hat).  After he is done, ask him: "Tell me what you did" and let them sequence on their own "First I put shoes on him, then I added eyes, lastly I added a hat".

Angry Bird Says

What you’ll need:

• Notecards
• Angry Bird cut outs (or other characters to suit your client’s interests)
• Marker
• Glue/tape 

 

My client loves all things Angry Bird.  These easy to make Angry Bird Says cards worked great to target his past tense regular verbs.  

Glue each character on a different card with a verb that you want to elicit.  Have your client pick a card and perform the action.  For example, they may pick a card that says “jump”.  Have your client jump up and down and explain to them that they are jumping.  After, clearly explain “you are not jumping anymore, you are done.”  Then, ask your client “what did you do?” to elicit the verb “jumped.”

Verb Suggestions:

To elicit past tense regular verbs ending in “t” sound:

• Jump->Jumped (perform action)
• Walk->Walked (perform action)
• Skip->Skipped (perform action)
• Hop->Hopped (perform action)
• Wash->Washed (use hand sanitizer)

To elicit past tense regular verbs ending in “d” sound:

• Clean->Cleaned (use hand sanitizer)
• Call->Called (make hand into a telephone)
• Open->Opened (open door)
• Close->Closed (close door)
• Smile->Smiled (perform action)

To elicit past tense regular verbs ending in “id” sound:

• Count->Counted (count to ten)
• Paint->Painted (pretend to paint on a canvas)
• Lift->Lifted (lift any object or lift out of chair)
• Rest->Rested (pretend to sleep)