Wooah! Wait a minute! If a child is having trouble retrieving words, shouldn’t we want to speed up his word finding? It depends! Is he a child who exhibits long pauses in his connected speech as he searches for the words he needs? Or is he a child who impulsively blurts out the wrong word, only to self-correct? There are different types of “word finders,” and different strategies are appropriate for each.
I remind my students that it is more important to be accurate than to be fast. I encourage them to take their time and feel confident in their choice of words. You can encourage that by modeling a slow, relaxed pace and pausing slightly before responding to them. This is the same strategy we use to promote fluency with children who stutter. Don’t say, “slow down,” but instead use a slower rate yourself.
I like to play word-naming games but modify the rules. I explain that we are playing with “speech rules,” which might be different than the rules that came with the game. Mattel’s Blurt (available on Amazon.com, at WalMart, and many other retail outlets) is one example. I count on my fingers to 5. If the child responds before I get to 5, he cannot move ahead in the game. Even better is to create definitions for curriculum words and play the game with the words the child needs for class.
The key is to use “thinking time.” Don’t just sit in your seat – use the time to use your strategies and come up with the word. Other riddle games are great. I especially like Linguisystems’ Rocky’s Mountain and Plunk’s Pond (now acquired by Pro Ed) . But there are many commercially-available games that can easily be modified to promote word finding. If you are not familiar with these, check out the following:
Headbanz, Outburst Junior, Catch Phrase, 20 Questions, Tri-Bond Junior, Buzzward, MadGab, Word Burst, Apples to Apples. As SLPs, you probably have your own favorite games you use in therapy regularly. Please email me or write a comment to this post and share your ideas! I’d love to hear from you!