Celebrating Better Hearing and Speech Month With a Fun Learning Fair
Better Hearing and Speech Month took center stage at the Education Center in Brookville, as speech pathologists hosted a fair with activities for students of all abilities to enjoy.
Whether students used a communication device or spoken language, each took a turn participating in bubble blowing, a sensory mat activity, snack mixing, and a paper collage craft. Each activity encouraged students to communicate using words or devices to express themselves during activities. The goal was for students to clearly express their desire to start, stop, or move on from an activity.
The fair was developed by Speech Pathologists Michelle Del Re, Jamie Farrell, Ewa Dynda, and Jasmine Farahan, under the supervision of Alexandra Weissmann, Clinical Coordinator of Speech.
The fair included several activities designed to facilitate “incidental learning.” In other words, each activity required students to use and develop their language skills while they freely went about their chosen activity.
Students attended the event with their teachers and aides who prompted them with words and phrases useful for transitioning from one activity to the next.
Of all the activities available, the most popular were bubbles and snack making. During bubble blowing, students were encouraged to communicate the phrases, “more bubbles,” “I like bubbles” or “no more bubbles.”
During snack making, they also were given a set of instructions to follow to make a snack bag. The task involved taking chocolate candies, popcorn, and pretzels from containers, with commands to put them in a bag, shake, and finally eat.
Some students used their communication devices to say “all done” before moving on to the next activity.
Such activities help students with their pronunciation while building simple phrases.
According to speech pathologist Jasmine Farahan, the more students practice, the better.
“It reduces barriers for people who may not know or are still learning sign language. It facilitates language learning because it’s another model to help students work on sounding out words and phrases which is why we encourage using it as much as possible, even at home,” said Jasmine.
The fair was a fun event demonstrating that learning can happen anywhere.