Therapy Trick Thursday

This month, I am kicking off something new on Thursdays. As a pediatric speech-language pathologist and a mother of a child with special needs, I have tried a variety of therapy techniques both professionally and personally.

On Thursdays, I will be featuring one little therapy technique or trick that I have found successful. By sharing, I hope that other parents or professionals can find something new and useful here.

Here's the trick for today:


Bottle Lid-Sticker Drop
This idea was featured in Cari Ebert's Power of Play seminar. (I highly recommend her seminars for professionals! They are so great!)

This idea is very simple, easy for parents to replicate, and is highly motivating for children.

Steps to do this yourself:
1. Collect a variety of plastic lids. I used milk jug lids, juice caps, or lids from a gallon water jug. It took me a few weeks to get the right amount collected.
2. After cleaning off any of the lids that may need it, choose one sticker to place on each lid.
More on how to choose stickers in a bit.
3. Recycle an empty plastic wipe container. You are ready!

Working with children for over 10 years, I have amassed a large collection of stickers. I have purchased some online or at dollar or craft stores. Stickers are easy to find, but I choose with purpose. When I look at stickers, I focus on the types of words or sounds that I can elicit from a sticker.

My target audience for this activity has been  2-4 year olds. This is used under supervision only due to the possibility that a child may put these in their mouth. With this age range in mind, the stickers I chose are some common words or sounds. In the picture above, my target words are: pig/oink, horse/neigh, choo-choo/train, drink/milk, butterfly/fly.

If a child is working on a specific sound, I select stickers to target the sound. These three lids are targeting the /b/ sound (bug, bock, bee). I try to collect 10-15 lids for a specific set of words or sounds.

Implementing this activity:

1. With toddlers, I hold on to all the bottle lids for safety purposes. The wipe container is placed by the child.

2. I hold up one bottle lid and either let the child tell me what the picture is or I model the word for the child to say.

3. When the child says the word or makes any attempt at the word, the child gets the lid and drops it in the wipe container.

This is very simple, but the children seem to love it! I hope that you give it a try and end up loving it too!



Come back next Thursday for another trick!

This information is for educational purposes only and is not therapeutic advice.