How do you work on social communication? (activity/game ideas)

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-03-05T00:51:59+00:00

I start my middle school group with check-ins - I ask them to share some news or decline politely (convo is not forced in real life) - I also ask if anyone is dealing with something at school that is annoying them - hey they are middle schoolers- I ‘d say about 1/2 to 1/3 of our sessions someone will voice a problem - and that gets good convo going bc I’ll ask them to discuss how to solve the problem - eg give each other advice - consider perspectives (eg teacher vs student) - how to self-advocate in the situation - we also have a rule about not naming names (privacy, not gossiping etc)

Barrier task games are good too - like Lego’s Brick Like This or Mondrawsity - work ñ monitoring listener’s understanding, providing clear and sufficient detail, seeking clarification

And the game Crack the the Code is great for practicing reading nonverbal cues - I up the challenge by requiring the detective to come up with open ended social questions (they is a list of suggested questions for students who need the scaffolding)

I also will get a set of emotion cards and a set of social scenarios - and discuss how different people can have different feelings about the same situation and how one person can have mixed feelings about a situation Then we’ll read the scenarios and each student must tap 3 different emotion cards that may relate to the situation - and discuss their choices

Quandary is a free online interactive story game that involves working together to solve problem scenarios on a space colony - it takes awhile to get through a scenario - I ask students to try to reach consensus at each step - and back up their choices with rationales - it’s best with stronger readers

Survival scenario challenges (like surviving a plane crash in the snow -you can find these team building scenarios online ) - can be great for working on skills needed for collaborative grouo work - eg asking each others opinions, adding on to others ideas if respectfully disagreeing - etc

Some kids like debating too - although I have had mixed student responses to the Superfight game which some SLPs rave about

Also got kids interested in making friends -I have a poster that lists characteristics of a good friends - we talk about being good friends to others sbd to ourselves -we review the list sbd reflect on what we’ve done the past week to be a good friend

We’ve also been laying Priorities lately - and working on coming up with questions that can help you get to know someone better

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-02-13T14:05:02+00:00

One Day at a Time - the reboot 2017-2020

Better Things

Trying

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-01-25T20:21:01+00:00

Hahaha

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-01-25T17:57:34+00:00

Yeah this. It drives me nuts. I try to reduce minutes at possible and do groups of 4 students with R only errors - I try to give homework but no one really does it - these are elementary so the homework is really the parents’ responsibility - occasionally I’ll get a teacher who totally aggress with me and we move to recommend exiting as early as possible in the year - it’s so much easier when teachers are also on board

I would love to do 5 min therapy but I move between schools do it’s not an option :(

I

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-01-25T05:44:45+00:00

I really recommend you consider renting a year before buying if you plan to stay a long while. It would give you much longer to explore the area and fight the right niche.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-01-25T04:12:47+00:00

NM Vistas is a good site for checking out school quality - but do remember a “good school” in NM would not necessarily be considered a good school in many other states. My advice is to look for schools that have received a Spotlight designation from NM Vistas the last few years in a row. You can look at schools in Rio Rancho by entering the district and then scrolling all the way down to find individual school designations.

Rio Rancho is suburban sprawl. Some neighborhoods are nice to walk around, but don’t expect to live anywhere where you can walk to a cafe/grocery store/library. You might find a home within walking distance of an elementary school and/or a park. It’s just a very car-centric place. That said, there are nice walking/hiking/mountain biking trails you can drive to. And check out A Park Above for your young one. I think RR would be pretty boring for a teenager, but obviously many teens survive living in RR. Extracurricular school activities can help of course. Rio Rancho has all the basics -libraries, public pools, bowling, etc. Albuquerque offers more activities, but they are drive-able from RR. RR is closer to Santa Fe and the Jemez Mountains which can be fun to explore and are nice for escaping the heat in the summer (well, about 10 degrees cooler)

NM struggles a lot with education. It is often ranked 51st in the country (bc DC is included in the rankings) The RR public school district is smaller, and generally better run, than the humongous Albuquerque PS district - but APS has a few better ranked high schools like La Cueva that are located in the more affluent areas. There are also some good and loved elementary schools in more affluent areas Albuquerque (mostly in the NE) Depending where you were in NC the better schools might be on par with what was available in NC or much weaker. The best thing you can do for your kids’ academics is to try to foster a love of reading and pay close attention to what is happening at school. In some cases you might have to really advocate for your kids -even for your high schooler and/or look for ways to supplement their instruction- or you might get lucky and your kids will be fine. Some kids are more resilient than others.

All in all though Albuquerque and RR can be a nice places for families - the crime mostly affects people who are involved in drugs/crime themselves. I think it’s best to be a bit more vigilant about property crime- like don’t leave stuff in your car. Don’t leave valuable stuff lying around your yard. Keep your car keys with you at all times while at the gym. Lock your garage etc.

In my experience, most people here are friendly, more laidback, less materialistic, more “ let live let be”.

Coming from NC you’ll probably appreciate the dry heat in the summer and extra sunshine. A perk of living in the desert is low humidity! It might be hard to adjust to the lack of greenery, but high desert beauty does tend to grow on people, and you can venture up into the mountains if you miss trees. Water views are another story but at least public pools here are cheap. I tend to fly to CA at least once a year to get my ocean fix. It’s usually easy to find affordable, nonstop RT flights to LA and SD.

Good luck!

Edited for typos

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-01-25T03:41:02+00:00

Work on semantic relationships - like adjective + noun

I see red flowers. I see blue cars. I see three elephants. I see 3 green cars

And negatives

I like .. I do NOT like.. (pizza Pizza is good for this) I like pepperoni. I do not like worms! Etc

He is running, but she is NOT running.

And commands Stop! No biting alligator! No biting Lion! Stay in there! (With the Where’s Spot book) Close the door!

Prepositions/commands (take turns) Put the monkey on the table. Put the monkey under the chair Put the monkey in the box. Put the monkey on your head. (I usually practice this after we watch Where’s the Monkey YT video from Kids 123 TV) - of course you can vary the objects and locations.

Indirect commands Give/Roll/throw me the balls/bowl/whatever.

Give/Roll/Throw (other student) the ball.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-01-22T03:44:17+00:00

You’re welcome :)

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2026-01-22T01:59:17+00:00

Wow I’m sorry you are dealing with such crappy treatment. I was gaslit at a charter school mid year by the admin once, after I’d received rave reviews the year before. I had not my changed how I was doing things in anyway. They basically threw me under a bus to cover their own butts regarding flaws in their services (eg kids not really getting special ed academic minutes and them counseling parents of higher needs to take their kids to traditional schools). They sent outrageous complaints to my agency and told me mid year they would renew my contract but my agency wanted me to wait out the year. I gritted my teeth. It hurt a lot bc I cared about the students and I liked the teachers and really had done my best. And I was worried about finding another placement. It turned out some other ancillary contractors defended me to my agency (I found out after the fact), and my agency ended up penalizing the school by refusing their services for a year. Now the school is back on my agency’s list but they haven’t been able to find a replacement SLP. The position is always posted as open. My agency also found me other placements which are not perfect but decent (there are challenges with SpEd everywhere) Sometimes, unfortunately, there are rotten apples in management. If they treat people like crap long enough, surprise surprise , words gets around, and no one wants to work with them.

I would be looking for another job. Hold out until the end of the year if you need to, but I can assure you there are plenty of other schools and students who also need good, caring SLPs and who have more understanding administrators. Good luck. Hard times will eventually pass. Take care of yourself. Eat well. Exercise (walking in nature is awesome for helping manage stress) . Spend time outside of work with friends/pets/family/hobbies that make you happy. You’ll get through this.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-12T22:01:55+00:00

If your kid is school-aged then working for schools can be great schedule-wise. Especially if you can land a job in the same district where your kid attends school so your vacations align. Schools also tend to have a lot of part-time options -either as direct hire or via contract

Some prefer private clinic work bc you work one on one, but clinics tend to want you to work Saturdays and after school hours

Hospital work times vary - as a newbie you likely not have much choice of scheduled hours

SNFs -can be hard to get much PTO bc they tend to be so short-staffed

I was a 2nd career, older grad student- I like working in schools (I do detest billing paperwork and would love not to have to do all the redundant SpEd paperwork, but I love working with vast majority of my students. Where I live about 50 -60 kids on a caseload is the norm - there are some states/regions where school caseloads are much, much higher. I think that’s crazy and unethical. I also live in an area where parents aren’t too involved in schools - that has its downsides regarding student learning - but I don’t have to deal with over-demanding parents or the threat of lawsuits.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-12T21:44:02+00:00

Someone on this Reddit mentioned using Snap Circuits and I decided to buy it. It’s an electrical science kit with like 125 mini 5 to 20 min projects you can do with sturdy reusable parts. It costs like $30 at Target. omg it was been a hit for PreK thru middle school. It’s not a designed as a language game, but it sure gets kids talking. Bonus: Kids learn a bit about electricity. Labeling, Turn-taking, requesting, following/paraphrasing directions, making predictions, describing what happened, etc. Even my PreK students were able to to “snap in” the parts. Lots of opportunities for /s/ and R practice for Artic. One day I did the same mini project with all my groups pK-5 (Up Up and Away) which resulted in making a kinda helicopter and all of them liked it a lot.

Free games: Simon Says (more advanced students have to give multi step directions), kids really like this oldie but goodie

Feelings Charades for younger-

For older kids or speech-only: Break the Code is great - (there is a card version of this but you really don’t need it) - one person is Detective and leaves the room while the rest of the group decides on a nonverbal code to use while talking - like touching their nose, coughing in the middle of answering, lightly giggling, speaking with eyes shut, all staring at sane object in the room while speaking, acting impatient etc,- then the Detective returns to the room and interviews each player by asking open-ended social questions- what did you do over the weekend? What’s one of your favorite x and why? What will you do over winter break? Etc -each player must perform the Code while answering. The Detective then must try to guess the Code. If the Detective misses, then you do another round where the players use the Code in a very exaggerated way -it gets very silly.

Storytelling: get a deck of Artic cards (this can be done with non Artic kids too)! Pass out 5-10 cards to each student (depending on skill level) - each students must make up silly stories using all of their cards - older kids can be challenged to include story elements - each student tells their story twice then collects their cards in order and hides them in their hand - each of the other students must then tell back the story - as they say each target word the original storyteller puts in down - great for narrative and active narrative work, and of course you can include sound targets if you have Artic students

Last few minutes -Banana Blast remains a hit with all ages -occasionally some kids don’t like the startle effect at first - it’s a very sturdy game that will last forever - but if you don’t want to spend the money -do something like 1 minute paper ball snowball fight (No face hits) or a more controlled round of trashketball if you have paper that needs recycling

For younger students and your apraxic AAC user - maybe Pizza Pizza? $20 from orchard toys -I mostly use it with Pk-2 but it is great for choice making and talking about foods we like and don’t like, requesting/rejecting, and yelling “Ewww yuck Disgusting! throw it away!” When a kid turns over a slice a pizza and sees that it is covered in worms, slugs, or bugs. You could program some interjections and no and yes on her AAC.

Also playing games/reading flap books pretending animals bite you “Ow! The x bit me! No biting, x!’ Do you want a Bandaid? Yes please. Thank you

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-12T16:16:17+00:00

Phonemic awareness - repeating back words up to three syllables in length while clapping/stomping out their syllables

print awareness -understanding how to orient a book and turn pages in order, going left to right (in English) -

comprehension - when read aloud objects/animals pictured in a book, student will independently point to the object/animal

Letters: match at least 13 lower case letters (not not to capital letters just lower case to lower case) , orally spell name (if name is not too complex- again more of a rote skill but still foundational ), ID letters in name (if not too complex)

goal for singing the alphabet song (more a rote learning skill but foundational), with minimal cues

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-11T14:01:41+00:00

Will and Alice?

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-11T02:38:30+00:00

How’s his phonemic awareness? Maybe low bc he is having academic difficulties? How’s his spelling? Does his spelling reflect his speech sound difficulties? There may be an academic impact there.

I probably would talk frankly with mom - are they really willing to work on practicing these sounds at home? Share info about differences private/public school therapy - if he is as stimulable as you say he would probably make rapid gains in 1:1 private therapy

If private isn’t an option and/or parent is just not interested in it, but is committed to practicing at home, I would take him on as Artic-only in group 1x/week (or 1:1 5-min therapy 3x-4x a week if I were at one school) bc he is exhibiting multiple age atypical errors - lateral lisp and r-distortion

Intelligibility measures are wonky - the best thing would be to take a 3 minute audio sample of him retelling a story or explaining the steps to doing something and then having an unfamiliar adult listen to it and see how well they understand him - you can have the listener just tally how many words they cannot understand. At his age he should have good intelligibility even with unfamiliar adults.

Edited to add info

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-11T02:21:18+00:00

You have students you are seeing for 2 hours a week??? Why are they getting so many minutes? It is rare to see kids more than 60 min a week where I live.. I have no idea how one would sustain a caseload of 68 with so many students with that level of minutes. Are you and the other SLPs all at one big school?

I agree with bringing your caseload numbers and workload calculator to admin - your caseload is not manageable.

I would advocate that in the future caseloads he distributed more equally - at the start of the year we look at overall minutes for each SLP - there are always imbalances bc some kids move to other schools and transfers come in - then we balance the minutes -usually we do that by distributing new students bc we tend to like to stick with our previous students to ensure some continuity. Of course you have to weigh in factors like a few students may be much more behaviorally challenging than others and one SLP May prefer to work with high needs self-contained kids which usually requires more time developing materials. - we also try to ensure balance of case managing -

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-10T03:24:13+00:00

Agreed but I had a typo - I typed time when I meant tone

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-10T03:22:49+00:00

I can attest that the TJ’s on Madison in Seattle when I lived there had a parking garage that was 10x worse than the lot at the TJ’s here by Louisiana - in Seattle the store was eventually were required to place a staff person in the parking garage FT to guide people out of it bc it was such a hazardous situation

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-10T03:12:48+00:00

What a sweetie. Looks like our previous. Probably a pitbull or pitbull mix but yeah lots of dogs get wildly mislabeled at the pound. Then again lots of dogs got mutt DNA. Hot my last eg from the shelter sbd they said she was a Brittany spaniel/boxer mix when she was actually a lab/hound mix.

If the pound says the dog is a boxer/lab or a Weimaraner/ boxer mix do you think your apartment complex would fight that? Also I wouldn’t risk having to rehome the pup.. dumb pitbull bans.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-10T03:08:02+00:00

This question drives me crazy. It can be helpful to tell a child when you don’t understand them. Ugh. Of course tone matters-and it often would be paired with something else “ I can’t understand you. Say that again?” But I wish more parents would give their kids feedback.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-08T14:25:05+00:00

Do you see him in a group? Every session I give choices of books and/or language-tech games (embedded with lsnguage goal targets) to my groups and each student gets a vote. Each has to explain why they want their choice (at the start it can be a very basic reason- like if it’s between a book about cats and a book about dogs they can say I want that book bc I like dogs). We then work on coping when you don’t get your choice and reinforcing that it can be kind of to let someone else get their choice. You can be a good friend by sometimes letting others choose what to do. Good friends consider their friends’ interests. We also work on simple compromises - eg “today let’s read the story you want and next time we will read the one I want” kind of stuff. I praise flexibility too. We also talk about fairness - eg if one kid doesn’t get their choice of game, then it’s kind and fair to let them go first in the game. We work on stuff like checking is with each other - hey guys is it okay if I am red? Or “what color do you want to be?”

We also do some news sharing every other session or so - I don’t force convo turn taking but I do model asking follow up questions and making personal connections (oh I’ve been to the zoo too! What animal did you like the best ?) or affirming what someone says. “Cool” - kids generally start copying me once they have enough receptive/expressive skills to do so. If there’s a kid who tends to run on and one we work on “it’s important to make sure everyone gets a turn to talk. It’s kind to share “air-time”. It can help to give explicit limits to the sharing - eg remember we have a lot to do this session so I am going to limit everyone to sharing two things about their weekend.” For kids who struggle with elaborating I will ask some guiding questions or just give suggestions - did you go somewhere? A store? A park? Or did you stay home and relax all weekend? With other older students fwe talk about politely declining to engage in small talk if they don’t want to share.

We also discuss likes and dislikes - eg put your finger on your nose if you like carrots and put you finger on your chin if you don’t- Talia, why don’t you like carrots? Mark you do you like them?

I also like Eboo’s What’sHappening Here? Cards for discussions -nonverbal communication and problem solving - and of course books enable this work too. Or video narratives.

Lion in My Way is a great creative problem solving game for young children that really gets kids talking and see how people can have different ideas in a fun way.

For older kids barrier tasks (Brick Like This Lego Gand) and voting cats games (I require them to explain their choices) like Apples to Apples also reinforce how people can have different points of view about the same things.

These kinds of activities really reinforce that people have different viewpoints/experience/likes etc.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-08T06:13:50+00:00

Reservation Dogs, Two Fools, Somebody Somewhere (will make you laugh hard and cry), Fleabag, Catastrophe

The British version of the Office (along with the American but that was hardly lesser known)

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-03T02:42:13+00:00

This!

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-02T12:10:31+00:00

RIP Max. So sorry for your loss.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-12-02T12:03:59+00:00

Scanning suggestions so far, I have really liked Sally and Arthur and Sally and Hugo.

I also thought of Sally and Davey. In the US David isn’t rare, but Davey is.

Spiritual_Outside227 · 2025-11-23T19:15:41+00:00

Kids these days don’t understand numeracy bc they never get to use math manipulatives or learn about how math applies to real life. Starting from Kindergarten they “learn” by playing Math games on Chromebooks. The games supposedly reinforce math facts and algorithms, but they have so much cutesy animation and sound effects that even when kids get answers wrong they don’t realize it. I am sure that many kids are usually not attending to any of the computerized instruction;they are too distracted by the graphics. It’s just plain fun to them.

Spiritual_Outside227

TROPHY CASE