Hellobee

D’s lovely OT introduced us to the concept of a “speech box” several months ago. The speech box is a structured speech therapy tool, which she claimed that many of her charges (and their siblings!) loved to do. Basically you keep items in a box and take them out one by one to play with and repeat a certain word, sound, or phrase. At the time the structure of the activity was way too much for D to handle, so we only did it intermittently, and he would lose focus almost immediately. These days he’s been much more interested, sometimes staying engaged in the activity for half an hour, and he’s learned some new words! How could speech therapy be so engaging for a young toddler, you may ask? Let me show you!

First find or purchase duplicate items that you can associate with particular sounds, and are ok with removing from your toy rotation and keeping in the box. Here are (most) of the items in our box, and the associated sounds we use. These sounds are ones that D struggles with, or that we’re trying to encourage. We started with only 4 – you can work your way up to more!

Action toys & vehicles (D’s favorite)

Slinky – A-boom / Clapper – bang bang / Crank – crank / Bell thing – ding ding / Brush – pretty (while brushing hair) / Ball – goal / Car – Honk honk beep beep / Plane – up (while flying) down (then dropping to the floor) / Boat – puff puff

Animals (K’s favorite)

Cow – Moo / Sheep – Baa / Horse – Neigh / Pig – Oink / Dog – Woof / Duck – Quack / Fish – Blub blub / Turtle – Turtle (or ninja!)

• Speech box = box full of items – just make sure you have enough for everyone who’ll be playing! For us, this means at least three things of each (D, K, me).
• Bring out the box and have all participants sit down on the floor with you.
• Set the closed box in front of you, have all participants knock on the top to start the round (knock knock knock!)
• Pull one set of items out, distribute one to everyone (or let people choose which color).
• Have everyone do the action or just play with the toy while repeating the designated sound. Example – Slinky! We say “Aaaaa boom” while stretching it out in front of us, and then collapsing it on “boom.” This is D’s favorite!
• When everyone’s done (or has stopped saying the desired phrase), say “bye bye” to the items, put them back in the box.
• Have everyone knock again, choose a new set of items, repeat until someone/everyone is done!

The routine of it all was intimidating to us at first, but I totally get the reason for it now. It makes it a special activity, and encourages the kids to listen and follow directions, especially if they can predict what will happen next (and that the game will end if they can’t follow the routine). It’s been really great having K do it with us since he can (mostly) model correct behavior for D to mimic.

I keep each set of toys in a little bag to easily grab everything. Here’s everything spread out and then loaded up. As you can see we’re just using an old shoe box, but crafty people could certainly come up with something nicer!

When we first started this activity, D was not making any “B” sounds. He would say the “aaa” part for the slinky but not the “boom.” After a few sessions he started reliably saying boom! I know this sounds like a minor accomplishment for an almost 2 year old, but it’s big in my book. He now asks to play speech box at least once a day by saying Aa boom?

Beyond just the B sound, D was incapable of sitting and paying attention to an “adult directed” activity for a length of time. He often would get absorbed in his own games but wouldn’t follow directions coming from someone else. He’s still not perfect (what toddler is?) but he’s gotten SO much better. I remind him that the game is over if he gets up and walks away with the toys, so he mostly sits in the right spot. Only having one set of things out at once helps to keep him focused as well – even if he only says the sound once (moo! all done!) and is then ready to go on to the next.

So, that’s my explanation of a speech therapy tool I was very skeptical about but have since grown to love. Have you ever heard of this game? If your LO is in speech therapy, what kind of things do you do?