Lego - Language Club
Enhance language and social skill development
What is it ?
It is an adapted version of the original evidence based ‘Lego Therapy’ created by Dr LeGoff (2004) who used lego building to support young people with social skills difficulties who were on the Autistic Spectrum.
Why language through lego therapy?
Most children love lego and playing it in a clinic setting (or school) creates a naturalistic environment and natural social moments that arn’t planned out. It is structured (behind the scenes by the speech therapist) and supervised by an SLT however it is intrinsically motivating for children, builds there confidence and is inclusive to many language & social skill levels of ability.
Can you use it for language skills too ?
Absolutely ! Many speech therapists have seen great success in language development using this structured but naturalistic style of therapy = lego.
What SKILLS does it target ?
Joint attention, listening, turn-taking, concepts (shape, colour, positional language, size & texture), play skills, eye contact (where appropriate) description skills, being able to ask for clarification, giving instructions, resolving a problem together with a peer, social skills, problem solving, phonological awareness, conversation skills, emotions, understanding and understanding self as part of a group. These are all useful classroom skills.
Bringing lego therapy groups to schools
Our Speech & Language therapist Holly Murphy during a lego-language session in school.
What it involves for teachers:
CPD for teachers through hands on practical sessions
Up-skilling teachers with new knowledge and confidence to support language
Teachers end up with practical, applicable skills in the school
How it will be implemented :
We can set up a program that suits your availability at the school.
Initially this involve a workshop for teachers who will be participating in the training and delivery of the program. We will explain more about the skills involved in running a group, logistics of timeframe etc. Then deciding who in the school might be appropriate for the first group (maximum 3 children to a group).
Teachers will be given the skills to not only support the lego group but also to enhance children’s language development in everyday classroom situations.
The aim is that the Speech therapist will support implementation / initial running of the group with an assistant (one of your staff) and then gradually the assistance will run it with SLT supervising and giving feedback at the end.
The SLT will then gradually reduce supervision to every second week (when teachers are ready).