Jake's Journey with Apraxia

Jake has been working on strengthening his auditory memory for about a year now. Summer is a great time to work on this skill and I think this extra boost is going to help my boy out tremendously in school. We still work on many of these activities at home a couple of times a week and my ten-year-old typically joins in.

1.) Look Who’s Listening! by Super Duper – This is expensive for a board game, but my kids and I think it is excellent. It can be used for a few years because it has three different skill levels on each card. I give Jake the easy to medium questions and my ten-year-old the hard ones. It is challenging in a fun way for both of them. Jake also played this game in speech therapy for a while.

2.) I went on a picnic and ate … This is a great game for the entire family if you are in the car or if you’re trapped somewhere with your kids and you need to keep them entertained and quiet. Each person takes a turn adding an item to the picnic list and also recalling the other things that have already been said. For example, the first person would say, “I went on a picnic and ate an apple.” The next person says, “I went on a picnic and ate an apple and a pancake.” The next person says, “I went on a picnic and ate an apple, a pancake, and a sandwich.” And so on. Last year, Jake couldn’t always say the complete sentence, but I focused on getting him to recall the order and build on the number of  words he could remember.

3.) Auditory Memory for Details in a Sentence Fun Deck by Super Duper – We just recently got this through the mail as a gift from our former SLP. It is for more advanced kids – kindergarten through second grade. It is pretty simple … the parent reads a paragraph and the child answers the questions. This is really hard for Jake, but I know that he is capable of improving. My ten-year-old son and I are also terrible at this skill, so it is good for our brains also.

4.) Soundtracks & Animal Soundtracks CDs by Galt Toys Inc. – I think this is a great auditory memory tool builder for little ones whose speech is still limited. I borrowed this set of CDs from a friend who is a Pre-K 4 teacher and recommended that I try them when Jake was about 3 or 4. The child listens to the sound (like a baby crying or an animal sound) and then places a marker on the bingo-type card. You could also let a child listen to two or three sounds at one time and then have them place the markers.

4.) Hear Builder Auditory Memory App by Super Duper – This app is awesome and it is free, free, free. It works on a variety of auditory memory skills and Jake loves it.

5.) Hear Builder Auditory Memory CD-Rom Game by Super Duper – This is a great extension to the app above. We used to also do this a lot in speech therapy. Click here to see demos of the different skills this game focuses on.

6.) Sticky note dial pad – Our SLP used to do this multi-sensory game with Jake and as simple as it is, I think it’s genius. To do this activity, write the numbers 0-9 on sticky notes like a telephone dial pad. The parent says a pattern of numbers (3 is a good amount to start with) while “dialing” them on the sticky notes. Tell child to follow the pattern with their eyes. Child repeats the sequence out loud while also “dialing.”

7.) To-dos at home – Simple, yet effective … “Go into your room and get a pair of socks and a short-sleeved shirt.” So, Jake has to hear the information and hold onto it in his brain for the 30-60 seconds it takes him to go to his bedroom. Our SLP taught him that if he can’t remember, he can repeat the information either verbally or in his head. We also use this exercise a lot for television channels. If he wants to watch tv upstairs, I’ll tell him what channel his show is on. He’ll repeat the number quietly, almost under his breath, all the way up the stairs … “863, 863, 863.”