Here we are – it’s October 2020 and many of us practicing clinicians are involved in lots and lots of teletherapy. I don’t know about you but when COVID-19 took away the joy that is face-to-face therapy, it really threw me for a loop.
*SIGH*
Of course I consider myself a person who “gets” technology but even I wasn’t truly prepared for the massive shift to almost exclusively all virtual delivery of speech-language therapy services.
Growth is a choice.
I took an honest look at what my colleagues and I were doing. How were we presenting our speech-language therapy activities to our caseload? The stuff that we were bringing to the “digital table,” was it presented in a manner that resonated with 21st century learners? I tried my hardest to think deep about this question and I tried, to the best of my ability, to look at all of this through the lens of today’s youth. Through thoughtful discussion and a real willingness to learn from my clients, I realized that I could be doing a better job. I needed to grow into the potential. I needed to explore video games.
Video games?!
One of the most common things that my elementary and middle school-aged students shared with me is how much they value and enjoy video games. Video games come in loads of different shapes and sizes, but long story short, I wanted to do something that allowed me to appropriately introduce video games into the work that I do together with my clients.
And so SLP Video Games was born.
From about April 2020 until just a few days ago, I kept my head down and I did the work. I learned all about Construct, which is an HTML5-based 2D game editor. I immersed myself in video games in ways that I never have done before. Loads of playtesting with loads of young people helped me to see that I was getting there. I was on my way to creating something that excited lots of learners. If used appropriately, video games can open up many doors for legitimate communication that connect to almost all speech-language therapy goals and objectives.
In closing . . .
As of a few moments ago, SLP Video Games is now launched and live. I shot the above video to show you what it’s all about. It would mean the world to me if you gave the video a watch. SLP Video Games might be for you. Might you give it a try?
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