[Source:  Speech Techie]

Following up on my last post on the “Toca Life” open-ended sandbox-style apps, I recently read a “Clinical Focus” article in American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and thought it shed light on how these apps (and others) can be used in context in therapy. Fey, Long, & Feinstack (2003) sought to outline “Ten Principles of Grammar Facilitation for Children With Specific Language Impairments” with research tie-ins relevant to all ages, but particularly for ages 3-8. This is a great article for any SLP or language interventionist to read, but I wanted to present it with ideas related to the principles being used in context, in particular the features and content of the Toca Life Apps.
So, the principles and some ideas:
1. The basic goal of all grammatical interventions should be to help the child to achieve greater facility in the comprehension and use of syntax and morphology in the service of conversation, narration, exposition, and other textual genres in both written and oral modalities.
This principle asserts a general philosophy of intervention, but for me speaks to the kind of functional communication that can be elicited through conversation and play around an app such as Toca Life: City or Toca Life: Town, and the student’s greater enjoyment of communication situations hopefully as a result of that intervention.
Read the Rest of this Article on Speech Techie