HERES ONE I MADE EARLIER...

Heres one I made earlier...

ALISON ROBERTS WITH MORE LOW-COST, FLEXIBLE THERAPY SUGGESTIONS SUITABLE FOR A VARIETY OF CLIENT GROUPS.

FORMAL AND CASUAL BOARD

A wall-mounted display for a group to make. It helps clients learn about the various social codes needed for different situations. Good fun to create, and forms the basis for many discussions.

BREATHING STRINGS

MATERIALS
Squared or graph paper As many newspaper or magazine pictures as you can find depicting people in different social contexts such as barbecues, weddings, legal trials, dances. (As a general rule local papers are a good source of photos of casual events, while the nationals, especially broadsheets, yield formal images.) Large board (either a piece of hardboard about 1 metre by 1.5 metres, or for a neater effect, a large pinboard in a frame, obtainable from DIY shops). Glue or pins, felt tips, scissors.

This is a fun and simple way to encourage deeper breathing by youngsters, as part of a course on breathing techniques. You can use it one-to-one or as a group activity. Take care not to encourage overly deep breathing, or your clients could become dizzy. A word of warning regarding physical contact dont do the measuring around the clients chest yourself. If they are unable to do their own measuring you should ask the parent, or else abandon this idea.

MATERIALS
String the soft white cotton variety, or you could use narrow cotton tape. Felt tips of many colours, and biros. Wire coat hanger (if you are doing this activity with a group).

BRAWN
Cut lengths of string approximately 15 cms longer than your clients lower chest measurement. Mark off 8 cms at one end with the biro this is the bit that the client will hold, and which will later become the attachment to the coat hanger.

BRAWN
With the board placed landscape, draw a vertical line about a fifth of the way across, and stick or pin a strip of squared or graph paper into this area. This paper forms your Graph of Formality, so must stretch from the bottom to the top of the board. Along the bottom of this graph, sideways on, you will later write various scenarios some will be those shown in the newspaper pictures, and others that your clients themselves may encounter. Write the word Formal on a sticker at the top of the remaining part of the board (the poster area), and similarly Casual at the bottom.

IN PRACTICE
The idea is to form breathing gauges by marking in different colours four points on the string that represent the clients chest measurement when they are 1) breathing fully out, 2) naturally breathing in, 3) breathing in deeply and 4) breathing in really deeply. Take care over the possible issue of hyperventilation. You may need to have breaks between each breath. You now have a baseline measurement for these four chest positions (fully exhaled, naturally inhaled, more deeply inhaled, fully inhaled). If you are working as a group you will need to label the strings with the clients names. Tie the strings loosely onto the coat hangers so that you can remove them at the next or subsequent session and see if there is any change. If / when there is an increase, just keep adding more colours. If you have enough of these coloured strings, you can leave them on the hanger together, to make an interesting wall decoration.

IN PRACTICE
1. The clients cut out the pictures and stick or pin them on the poster area of the board, deciding between them how far up towards the formal or down towards the casual they should be placed. You should end up with a bottom row of casual images such as a group of people in a pub or on a beach or picnic. Then, working upwards, there will be several rows of progressively more formal images, including scenes such as shopping, school / college / work cafs, doctors waiting rooms and appointments, until you reach the formal settings such as funerals, and state banquets. (They dont have to be situations the clients have experienced, in fact the more extreme the better). 2. Fill in your graph, colouring in the vertical bars on the graph paper, as far up towards the formal, or down towards the casual as the group decides. The scenarios for which you have already stuck on pictures will come as far up the graph as they were placed on the poster. 3. Now the clients add their own scenarios to the graph, again writing sideways at the bottom of it. Situations might include going to the snooker hall; work experience at the garden centre; phoning home; phoning Mums office; texting a friend; visiting an elderly relative. You may need to give guidance as to whether for example phoning mums office is more or less formal than asking for something in a shop.

ALSO FOR
This is a lateral thinking game for a group of clients of any age.

MATERIALS
Objects that are readily to hand, in any office, or you can supplement with common kitchen utensils, handbag contents or other items.

IN PRACTICE
Pick up an item such as a paperclip and think of an alternative use for it. Each client just thinks of one new use, then passes it on to the next person who does the same. When no one can think of any more uses, pick up a new item. The new uses can be as wild and wacky as you like. For example, a pencil could be used as a plant support, a chopstick, a hair decoration, a window prop, or a stick for a paper windmill. A paperclip could be used as a hairgrip, an earring, a link from a paperclip necklace, or a tool for extracting something stuck in a crevice. You can take the opportunity to make the point that two heads are better than one at this, and that if we all pool our ideas we can have better results (this also links into friendship skills).

VARIATIONS
Add little speech bubbles to the pictures, with greetings set at the appropriate level, ranging from Hi to Morning, to Good Morning and so on. If you write these on post-it notes you can vary the type of bubble, to include farewells, and conversational topics. Discuss, and possibly write on the poster, appropriate forms of non-verbal greetings, such as High fives, handshakes, salutes, even curtsies! Also discuss appropriate clothing for each scenario.

SEASONAL VARIATION
Think of alternative uses for Christmas items such as tinsel, decorated cake board, Father Christmas hat, stocking, pudding basin. Alison Roberts is a speech and language therapist at Ruskin Mill Further Education College in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire.

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SPEECH & LANGUAGE THERAPY IN PRACTICE WINTER 2005