Sensory Friendly Halloween Fun

As Halloween is quickly approaching, here's a few quick tips to help your sensory-kiddo get through the holiday without a hitch. 

1. Make a schedule of events. Provide a picture schedule and talk about what your child should expect from the day/night. Consider an organized smaller trick or treating option during the day.
2. Practice for the night out. Plan a dress rehearsal, full costume and all. 
3. Take a break throughout the night. Too much sensory stimuli, are we overwhelmed? Take a break! Make sure to include your sensory tools typically used with your child.  
4. Alternatives to non-allergy friendly candy. Plan to provide snacks that your kiddos can eat that are not smothered in ingredients on your child's food allergy list. 
5. The perfect costume.
1. Avoid masks at all costs. 
2. Wear layers of comfortable clothing under the potentially scratchy costume. 
3. Avoid sensory triggers. 
6. And when its all said and done...talk about it! What did your child like, not like? Take notes for next year. 

A Word from Speech: Tips for literacy and utterance length

For those of you with Preschool-age children, we wanted to share a few tips to improve literacy as well as increase their utterance length (number of words they use). This allows them to be more expressive and engage in more success conversations with adults.

PEER is a technique that allows the child to become the teller of the story and the adult becomes the listener, the questioner, and audience. Use this strategy when you want your child to tell you a story or a personal experience

Prompts the child to say something

Evaluates the child’s response

Expands the child’s utterance.

Repeat the phrase.

Example of PEER use: 

Adult: What does the pig want with his pancake?  

Child: Wants syrup 

Adult: That’s right, the pig wants syrup.  

Child repeats: The pig wants syrup.

SEER is a strategy that is used to teach new words.

Say the word in context

E Provide a child-friendly explanation of the word using Tier 1 (basic) vocab

E Give an example from your experiences or the child’s experiences.

R Ask the child to repeat the word after you.

Use these techniques to help your child grow their expressive vocabulary and ability to engage in storytelling. Watch your child’s language grow!