Smashmats as an Auditory/Listening Activity

 

So many of you are probably already using smashmats in therapy.  They are great for targeting speech articulation or theme-based vocabulary (expressive and receptive).  But have you ever thought of using them for auditory skill development with your Deaf and Hard of Hearing students?  

If your students have listening goals targeting discrimination, identification, and comprehension, smashmats are a fun and motivating way to work on them.  All you really need to do differently is add the use of the acoustic hoop.  The smashmats developed for articulation are often the best for targeting discrimination.  They typically contain sets of pictures that are very similar in terms of their consonants, vowels, and syllable structures.  Consider the image on the top right of this post (hat, hot, cat, bat).  When using the theme-based vocabulary smashmats, such as the one on the top left of this post, the words are very different in structure.  However, they are still great for working on identification through listening alone.  You can embed the words in a carrier phrase or sentence to add to the complexity of the listening task (ex. Find the ____ and smash it!).  

If I am working with two students at the same time, I will provide each with their own mat and then put a barrier in between them so that everyone does their own listening.  When I am working with only one student, I often will give myself a mat.  This allows it to become a turn-taking activity.  In addition, we are now targeting both listening (my turn) and expressive language (spoken or signed) and/or speech articulation (their turn).  Another tip...for some of the younger students, or students with additional challenges, I keep all the play dough balls out of their reach and give them one at a time.     

Using smashmats like the ones above, you can also target sentence comprehension.  Depending how you formulate the sentences, you can have up to three critical elements (ex. She has a pink flashlight. vs. He has a blue flashlight. vs. They have a blue cooler.).  If you have a mat yourself, now you're targeting listening, vocabulary, and grammar!!!