Lego Therapy

Summary

• Many of our pupils struggle with communication difficulties within school and in the wider community.

• Pupils often cannot recognise these difficulties which leads to communication breakdown.

• Lego Therapy is an intervention which enables pupils to build effective communication skills or to further develop skills they already have.

• Initial focus is on communicating in pairs then focus shifts to communicating as part of a small group.

• It takes place once a week in some classes.

Aims

• To build on and develop communication skills through fun Lego building activities.

• To recognise and begin to use strategies to repair communication breakdowns.

• To develop communication skills with an emphasis on verbal and non-verbal communication, joint attention and task focus, collaborative problem-solving, sharing and turn-taking. Content

• The program is split into 3 stages which increase in complexity.

• Level 1 - To develop basic skills needed for successful communication and Lego building sessions (turn taking, following instructions, shape and colour recognition, prepositional language skills etc). Pupils have the opportunity to work individually and in pairs at this stage for TA led activities.

• Level 2 - To build on the skills gained in stage 1 to work as a group of 3 or 4 pupils to build a Lego set collaboratively. Pupils are given specific roles at this stage (Builder, Engineer, Supplier, Architect). Each role allows pupils to develop different skills and they rotate jobs to develop a range of communication skills. Particular focus here is working together to solve both building and communication problems.

• Level 3 - A this stage, pupils progress to transferring skills learned to other activities. The focus here is to be able to work in pairs and groups in a variety of situations and to practice using communication skills learned at Level 1 and Level 2.

Measured Impact

• Feedback through Evidence for Learning

• Lego therapy assessment grid

Over the past few months the children have enjoyed Lego Therapy. So far, we have seen an increase in effective communication. The children have worked hard with turn taking and sharing. During free time, the children have made some incredible models!