By Erin Kelly, M.A., CCC-SLP

A student can answer who, what, where, when, and why questions accurately during speech therapy and then struggle to keep a real conversation going. You ask, “Where did the boy go?” “The park.” “Why did he go there?” “To play.” “Who did he go with?” “His friend.” Every answer is correct. Then you put the structured activity away and ask, “What did you do this weekend?” “Nothing.” And the conversation ends. If you're an SLP, you've probably seen this happen. A student may perform well on...

Discover real-world social skills activities for kids through Friends in the Forest Social Skills Camp, where nature-based experiences build communication, flexible thinking, perspective taking, conversation, and problem-solving skills.

For many students, we ask them to do something surprisingly abstract in speech therapy: “Make a sentence.” They may know what they want to say. They may know the vocabulary. They may even be able to identify who or what they are talking about. But putting all of those pieces together into a complete, organized sentence can be much harder. This is where visual sentence building can make a difference. By pairing words with AAC-style symbols and giving students a way to see, move, and organize...