Do you have a child with childhood apraxia or speech? Does your child have trouble imitating movements, sounds or facial expressions?
Are you looking for a fun and simple game that will help your child work on imitation, following directions and turn taking?
Try this game called MimiQ. I bought this game at a toy store a couple of months ago and both of my children love the game because of its simple rules and unique theme. The game comes with 33 cards filled with various matching facial expressions and gestures. After shuffling the cards, each player gets three cards and needs to ask their opponent, “Do you have (facial expression)?” The child has to imitate the facial expression within their question in order to receive the card. The person that gets the most sets of three identical cards wins.
Each time I play this game I think about the various ways it can be useful for both typical children and child with special needs, specifically a child with apraxia and/or social skills and communication disorders. Many children with a social communication disorder, ADHD and/or Autism have difficulty reading social cues, attending and following directions. This game can also be useful with those children diagnosed with any motor planning issues, such as childhood apraxia of speech, which makes it difficult to imitate specific movements.
Below are some speech and language tips to target with this game:
1. Practice turn taking with other opponents.
2. Learn to imitate facial expressions.
3. Follow one to two step directions.
4. Sequencing (e.g. first you draw a card, then you ask a question)
5. Ask “wh” questions (e.g. “Do you have the ____?)
6. Answer “wh” questions and yes/no questions.
7. Label and explore various facial expressions and feelings. Also work on commenting and describing the facial expressions!
8. Learn to read social cues based on facial expression.
9. Match facial expressions (the goal of the game is to get the most matches).
10. Categorization (categorize the cards according to gender, age, or feeling!)
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