Fall Scene Barrier Activity - Predetermined Targets/Outcomes

I use barrier activities so often in my therapy.  They are a great way to target auditory skill development for students with cochlear implants or hearing aids.  But they are also perfect for working on receptive and expressive language (vocabulary and grammar), giving and following directions, and basic concept development for any student on your caseload.  Often times, however, the students get so caught up on what they want to say when it's their turn that they aren't able to be clear and concise.  Their peers lose interest while they formulate their thoughts.  Also, students tend to use simple, less complex directions and make very standard choices (ex. sun yellow, apple red).  By giving the students a completed picture, I can control the complexity and help eliminate some of the prior issues described.  In addition, by giving each student the same picture colored differently, they have a closed set to refer to when listening to their peer.  They also have a blueprint for the expectations.  

I use game boxes to create barriers between the students.  It's important to use ones that are tall enough to block visual access to the students' papers but not to block visual and auditory access to their peers' mouths when talking or hands when signing.  If it's a true auditory/listening activity using the acoustic hoop, then you just want to make sure there aren't barriers to sound waves traveling through the air from speaker to listener.  To increase the complexity of the activity, you can target multi-step directions (ex. "Color the leaf in the basket yellow and color the wagon handle blue.").  I typically wait to see what the receiving student understood/remembered before offering assistance.  This type of activity has built in opportunities for practicing communication breakdown repair.  In the end, even when a direction has been successfully understood, I like to repeat it myself so I can model the appropriate word order, usage, and grammar.