YouTube in Therapy for Older Students

Last time I shared with you some of my ideas for using YouTube with my younger kiddos. Today I'm excited to share my tips for those older, tech-savvy kids. Now, these older kids literally live on the screen, so they can pretty much outrun all of us as far as technology, right?! But here are some surprising ways they (and maybe even you) may not have thought to use YouTube in therapy.

Motivators

Just like our younger clients, older students love a good reward at the end of a challenging session. The beauty? They're experts at navigating YouTube, so they can easily cue up their favorite vids. But wait, there's more! I love introducing them to some lesser-known gems that pack a powerful punch:

Flexible thinking and how the mind learns new things:

Backwards Bike - this was mind-blowing to watch!

How mistakes are okay and help you learn:

OK Go Rube Goldberg Machine (I talk about how you can see the evidence of how many previous tries - 85 to be exact - they had to get it right, but how awesome it was when they got it right. BTW, the song itself has a great message of how bad things are only temporary.) TEDTalk on how it was engineered here. (caution, the TEDTalk has one minor cuss word and the band is having a drink of champagne at the end.) If you don't know what a Rube Goldberg machine is, it is a YouTube rabbit hole. I warned you.

The Power of a Stutter

A TedTalk on how accepting your insecurities and even embracing them allows us to become better communicators. How it frees us from worrying about hiding them to think about how we can speak to and help others. (BTW, she has a very noticeable stutter so this is an excellent video for your fluency students.)

Teaching Support

How to make sounds

I'm probably not alone when I say that I turn to these when I have a kid I just can't get to make the sound, especially now that I am wholly teletherapy. My camera just isn't as professional as what I can find on YouTube. The two best sources for sound instruction I've found are Sharon Turner, who has a animated video model of the tongue inside the mouth for each sound, and Peachie Speechie, who has great teaching videos for each sound. But there are many, many options to choose from.

Read-Alouds

I'm using short stories in most of my older groups. When we first read a story, I want it to be a dramatic, cohesive reading, so I actually don't want the students to read it. I want them to listen and be drawn into the story. But you know, a day of that and my voice gets tired. Cue YouTube read-alouds! You can find an audiobook of most popular short stories on YouTube pretty easily. And bonus - most you can turn on Closed Captioning so students can read-along if you don't have a text that matches well. And the students actually love being read to. If I have a student who needs to read for a goal, then I can stop and have them read a paragraph or so, then return to the read aloud.

Background Knowledge

To go along with the read-alouds, a well-made video to give background knowledge is worth so much more than me droning on about what life in a lighthouse is like. You know what they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Well, a video must be worth a million, right?! And they are so much more willing to watch a video than listen to me (and let's be honest, it gives my voice a break).

Movies

And if at all possible, I like to find at least a clip of a movie or animation to go with the story. It provides so many opportunities for language-rich discussion, with opinions (Which did you like better, and why?) comparing and contrasting, and inferencing (Why do you think the director made this change?).

Social Skills

There are SOOOO many social skills videos out there. Some of them are tailored toward our autistic population, some are more for introverted young adults, and some are for the ESL population. Don't just stick to the videos that tell how-to do something. Sometimes the awkward videos offer great teaching moments too. This one is one of my favorites. While I do touch on what he does wrong, I mainly use it to talk about other people's responses, and how they are generally kind about it and make an effort to not make him feel bad even though everyone feels awkward. People are typically kind, so you might as well go out there and try.

Pro Tips

Now, I mentioned in Read-Alouds to turn on the Closed Captioning if you don't have a text that matches the reading. It might be useful to do so with the other videos as well, to make the speech/text connection and fill in any missing gaps in the auditory information.

I also suggest you turn the speed to 75%. This is usually not noticeable to the kids, but it allows them more time to process what is being said so they get a better understanding of the information.

Update 12/24

I recently found the free internet browser Brave and have been using it the past couple of weeks. It was simple to move my Google bookmarks into Brave, and I am using it solely for use with the kids, so it streamlines my therapy sessions too. I haven't had a single youtube ad, and I haven't noticed other ads popping up on websites.

I will say that, while it does block the ad on a website, there is often still the space where the ad would be. Often, a reader extension like ReadBee will remove those spaces and focus on the text.

So, there you have it, folks! These are just a few ways to leverage the power of YouTube in therapy sessions with older students. But hey, the possibilities are endless! Got some killer ideas of your own? Drop 'em in the comments below!

Until next time, my e-speechies - keep on clickin'!

Mrs. Speech

Image from Pixabay free for use under Pixabay Content License

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YouTube in Therapy for Older Students