Using Child Directed Art In Speech Therapy

Lots of us SLPs do some form of arts and crafts during therapy.  If you look on Teachers Pay Teachers or on the different social media sites, there are lots of different great craftivities out there.  These typically have very specific goals they target and have a designed final product.  These are great and I use them often during therapy but I also love using child directed art.  

How does it work?  I will choose different materials to put out on the table and the children then choose what they want and how they put the materials together to make a final product.  Some final products may be simple and only contain different kinds of glue. Others are a more elaborate collage of different materials.  I will make a project beside them so we can talk about what we are doing. The sky the limit as far a materials go. 

• tissue paper in whole sheets or cut up into different shapes
• doilies 
• stickers (these often reflect the theme of the week)
• glue
• glitter glue
• ribbon cut into different lengths
• feathers
• pompoms
• crayons
• markers
• bingo dabbers
• paints
• different types and colours of paper
• sparkles
• clay

The reason I love child directed art is that it can target so many different goals in a natural environment and as my OT and art teacher friends would say, it's developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.  While creating, I can target:

• requesting and commenting
• increasing MLU
• verbs  (e.g. glue, cut, paste, stick, dab, squeeze, spread)
• adjectives (e.g. sticky, wet, shiny, pretty, bright, dull, and soft)
• arctic goals.  I'll have materials out that will use targeted sounds (e.g. s-blends: stickers, sparkles, sparkly, sticky, stripes, and spots)
• school concepts such as  colours, shapes, and numbers
• prepositions  (e.g. on, in, next to, under, and around)
• describing what they have made
• social skills such as sharing and negotiating with peers. It's great when children do a craft together

Bonus is that it's great for communication temptations, both natural (e.g. opening glue) and created (e.g. putting materials in clear containers) and it's highly engaging. Often children will stay longer at it than other types of craft projects.

Child directed art can be, and usually is, very messy.  I usually have an old plastic tablecloth I spread over the table for ease of cleanup.  Also, I do it during the time of day when I can spend the extra time to clean up. Do you do kid directed art in therapy?