Sensory toys

These are fun; great for pairing and also for teaching and generalising all those important language, social and play skills! You can choose a large selection of these toys, there’s chattering teeth, cars, animals and other characters. If you have a few different toys to complete the activity then this increases the teaching opportunities. Requests could be simply “ready steady…” “go” fill-ins, or requesting specific items, i.e., teeth vs. frog (mand: 1-5M, 8-10M), or if you have the same character in different colours or sizes requesting using adjectives (mand: 13M). You could contrive motivation for requests for actions too, including turn or wind, let go, stop, catch, for example (mand: 7M, 14M). In addition, you could focus on adjectives as receptive (LR*: 13M, 15e. Maths: 14M) or expressive/tact (tact: 13M) targets, for example “show me the big car” or “let’s talk about fast and slow, this one is…”.  The toys may have features on them, colours, body parts, numbers which you can discuss (LR:  . Tact: ). You can also draw or write, shapes, numbers or letters on your toys (They are usually made out of plastic and if you use a board marker this rubs/washes off—This way you can generalise skills specific to your learner!). You could also count the toys (maths: 11a, 12d, 13b, 14a), or ask the learner to count out of the group (i.e., “give me 3 dinosaurs” (maths: 13M), or match to quantity (maths: 15M). The toys could be raced, so you might want to make a start and finish line. You could do this by cutting strips of paper or by drawing on whiteboard (if indoors) or chalk (if outdoors). You could ask your learner to copy a line model (writing: 11M, 12f), or draw it as a receptive instruction “draw a line” (writing 12e).

Preceding skills reference to the VB-MAPP Assessment tool:

Sundberg, M. L. (2008) Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program: The VB-MAPP. Concord, CA: AVB Press.

*LR: Listener Responding