What's In Your Early Intervention Kit? A link-up post

I am linking up with Simply Speech along with some other speech-language pathologists to talk about favorite items in our early intervention therapy bags.

It's been many years since I have done early intervention therapy, but it's an age group I've always found to be tremendous fun to work with. My experiences currently with the very young are with evaluations - usually for use of augmentative-alternative communication (aac).

I'm thrilled that I am seeing more and more little ones come in to be assessed for aac.  It always makes me sad - and a little crazy - when I don't see kids until mid-elementary or later.  Fortunately, I'm having fewer and fewer experiences with kids coming in as they're transitioning out of high school!  

Early intervention for aac users is crucial to eliminating the frustration that comes with the inability to communicate.

But, back to the little ones.  One of my absolutely all-time favorite activities is bubbles. Almost everyone loves bubbles - regardless of the age.  I use Gymboree bubbles (I have no affiliation).  I found them when my kids were little (they're now in their 20's and 30's).  

They are non-toxic and have no soap.  So there's no problem when they get into eyes or little mouths. They also last forever.  Except for the ones you purposefully pop or catch, they tend to hang around once they land.  
You can have a lot of fun going on a bubble hunt; trying to find all the little bubbles hanging out on the floor, under the table, on top of the toys.

I also love play sets.  I still have one of the old original Sesame Street houses, although I've lost track of the figures.  I also have some of the Fisher-Price sets as well.  They're terrific for working on vocabulary, particularly nouns and verbs, prepositional concepts.  And if you're working with an aac user, lots of great core vocabulary: I, you, more, put, have, help, go, finished, here, in, mine, of, on, out,  that, want, what can all be worked into playing with play sets.






So, that's what's in my early intervention bag.