Creative communicating.

12-2-of-5 I’m excited to introduce to you, The Creative Mama’s first guest author, Becky Davidson. She is a proud wife, and mama of one darling girl and two furry cats.

So Ang asked me to be a guest “contributor” for Creative Mama and I was a bit shocked. What do I know about anything? Alas, I know a lot about my job. For those of you out there in blog land I am a behavior specialist consultant. I develop behavior plans for children with developmental, emotional, and behavioral issues/concerns. Personally, I tend to take more cases with autistic children and younger children that have communication and social troubles.

Talking to Ang she thought people would benefit from some of my websites, tips and tricks to helping kiddos with communication. My opinion is that kids who have communication troubles tend to develop trouble expressing their emotions. I think it goes hand and hand and like to work on both skills at once.

Making the activities fun and less therapeutic is a great way to go. Infuse the activities into normal play times and routines. There is also a PECS tool that is very helpful. That stands for Picture Exchange Communication System. You can find free pictures of anything in your house and can put words on it to help label your objects.

They can also be used to make a picture schedule, scavenger hunt games, sequencing activities, and even break time cards. Break time cards are great when kids are so upset they can’t use their words. It also helps to use coping skills like deep breathing and counting on it to remind the child to use them. A personal favorite is emotions bingo with real faces on them to help kids learn feelings.

I could talk for hours so I will end this post now with some of my favorite links to help you get started. Feel free to ask any questions!

special education technology under learning centre there is curriculum and picture sets. Both have lots of great picture ideas and games. You just have to search the page on the sides.