Marble Runs and blog recognition

I want to do a quick cheat and show you two blog posts that really impressed me this week:

First: Playing with words 365's post (or posts) regarding Phonological delay.
I really really wish that I had this knowledge when I first started working with children 12 years ago.  Actually this knowledge would have been good even 5 years ago. I highly recommend that everyone working with the birth to 3, preschool, or elementary age students read her four posts regarding phonological delays. 

Second: Tatyana Elleseff MA CCC-SLP does an excellent job as the a guest blogger for ASHAsphere.  While I never wrote a goal about emotional vocabulary, I couldn't help but work on it with every single one of my language delayed kids.  Most of the kids I have worked with could identify 3 feelings: sad, mad, and happy.  Their limited language truly impacted how they experienced the world.  And in general they responded to stimuli with the limited emotions that their language allowed.  Is it any wonder, that language delayed kids have such high incidence of behavior problems? 

Now that I have cheated, I thought I'd share with one of my favorite therapy activities.  I won't lie, I am a drill and kill kind of girl when it comes to speech sound disorders.  Part of it is my general belief that I have a limited time with these students and I want to get everything I can out that time.  I struggle with coming up with highly motivating activities that still allow me to get up to 100 correct productions of my target.  But a marble run has never failed me.  My marble run is made up of multiple partial Discovery Toys Marble works:

I went through two separate phases of selling Discovery Toys and combined both sets from my demo products. I also have found partial kits on ebay and garage sales.    Of course, Discovery Toys is not the only place that sells marble runs. So while that's my preference, I don't think it's your only option.

So how do I use the marble run:

First is the building. I have learned through trial and error that I should be the one to do the building. I usually eliminate the difficult pieces, for my own sanity.  Then I let the child pick one at a time.  Depending on the child I can have the child practice their target sounds/words/ or phrases as they pick pieces.  I try to limit the building to about 5 minutes.

The next step is control the marbles. I've learned to make sure that the marbles come towards me and away from the child.  Occasionally, they will try to get a hold of the marbles, but I make it clear that after the marble has run down, I get the marble. If they want the marble back, they have to say words.

I usually have the general rule that for every 5 or 10 words they get 1 marble.  This will depend on their attention and maturity.  But I can often tempt them to attempt even more trials with the promise of more marbles.  20 words at time could give them 4 marbles to send down the marble run.  The final motivation is that if everyone has given 100 correct productions then I quite drilling them and they get to just play.  I find I do need to use a timer for this, or I have a hard time convincing them to clean up.

I have used a marble run successfully from ages 2 years to 12.  And I suspect that I could get kids 12 and up to work for the marble run, but I've never tried.  

I want to do a quick cheat and show you two blog posts that really impressed me this week:

First: Playing with words 365's post (or posts) regarding Phonological delay.
I really really wish that I had this knowledge when I first started working with children 12 years ago.  Actually this knowledge would have been good even 5 years ago. I highly recommend that everyone working with the birth to 3, preschool, or elementary age students read her four posts regarding phonological delays. 

Second: Tatyana Elleseff MA CCC-SLP does an excellent job as the a guest blogger for ASHAsphere.  While I never wrote a goal about emotional vocabulary, I couldn't help but work on it with every single one of my language delayed kids.  Most of the kids I have worked with could identify 3 feelings: sad, mad, and happy.  Their limited language truly impacted how they experienced the world.  And in general they responded to stimuli with the limited emotions that their language allowed.  Is it any wonder, that language delayed kids have such high incidence of behavior problems? 

Now that I have cheated, I thought I'd share with one of my favorite therapy activities.  I won't lie, I am a drill and kill kind of girl when it comes to speech sound disorders.  Part of it is my general belief that I have a limited time with these students and I want to get everything I can out that time.  I struggle with coming up with highly motivating activities that still allow me to get up to 100 correct productions of my target.  But a marble run has never failed me.  My marble run is made up of multiple partial Discovery Toys Marble works:

I went through two separate phases of selling Discovery Toys and combined both sets from my demo products. I also have found partial kits on ebay and garage sales.    Of course, Discovery Toys is not the only place that sells marble runs. So while that's my preference, I don't think it's your only option.

So how do I use the marble run:

First is the building. I have learned through trial and error that I should be the one to do the building. I usually eliminate the difficult pieces, for my own sanity.  Then I let the child pick one at a time.  Depending on the child I can have the child practice their target sounds/words/ or phrases as they pick pieces.  I try to limit the building to about 5 minutes.

The next step is control the marbles. I've learned to make sure that the marbles come towards me and away from the child.  Occasionally, they will try to get a hold of the marbles, but I make it clear that after the marble has run down, I get the marble. If they want the marble back, they have to say words.

I usually have the general rule that for every 5 or 10 words they get 1 marble.  This will depend on their attention and maturity.  But I can often tempt them to attempt even more trials with the promise of more marbles.  20 words at time could give them 4 marbles to send down the marble run.  The final motivation is that if everyone has given 100 correct productions then I quite drilling them and they get to just play.  I find I do need to use a timer for this, or I have a hard time convincing them to clean up.

I have used a marble run successfully from ages 2 years to 12.  And I suspect that I could get kids 12 and up to work for the marble run, but I've never tried.