teach2play
Developmentally Appropriate Educational Resources
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Jenny McCarthy is the co-founder of Teach2Talk, LLC, a new producer of educational resources for children targeting core speech and language, play and social skills using techniques including video modeling.
As a collaboration between Sarah Clifford Scheflen, a practicing speech language pathologist, and Jenny, the mother of a child with autism, teach2talk’s focus is on developing high–quality educational products for young children in a wide range of chronological and developmental ages which are based on peer–reviewed, evidence–based scientific research, tested and validated in a clinical therapy setting, and making those products available to parents, teachers, therapists and other professionals.
Teach2talk DVD Series
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teach2play ™ is the revolutionary new series of DVD videos from teach2talk™ designed to help teach play skills both to children with autism and other developmental disorders and to all other children who need assistance with their play skills. Play skills are an important component of every child's socialization and of their linguistic, emotional and cognitive development. Furthermore, improved play skills lead to improved language skills. Our four DVD volume teach2play™ series:
The four DVDs in the teach2play™ series progress from the most basic play skills on our play ladder through the most advanced. The four DVD titles are:
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teach2talk’s™ Social Skills! series of DVD videos helps teach children appropriate social behaviors through the use of targeted video modeling. Volume 1 of our Social Skills! series, Sharing, focuses on a critical component of every child’s socialization – learning to share – by modeling appropriate sharing behaviors in a variety of scenarios and settings, and by incorporating humor and songs to keep children engaged and provide additional reinforcement. teach2talk’s™ goal with Sharing is to help children find enjoyment in sharing their experiences and possessions with other people. In addition to helping teach children how to share, this video also helps teach children appropriate language to use when sharing. This video is appropriate for children of all ages, whether as an introduction to the concept of sharing or as a reinforcer or refresher on the concept. |
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teach2talk’s™ WH Questions! series of DVD videos helps teach children to understand and appropriately answer basic question forms critical to a functioning communication system – when, where, which, how, what, who/whose, and why/wherefore questions. Volume 1 of our WH Questions! Series, Where?, models appropriate answers to over 30 common questions regarding locations in every day settings such as the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the toy room, outdoors, and a park. Where? was created by a speech language pathologist who has extensive experience working with children to teach them question forms, including through video modeling, which research has shown to be an effective method. Fun songs are also added to keep children engaged and help them further generalize their new found skills! Where? is appropriate both for younger children just being introduced to WH question forms, as well as older children who have language or developmental delays. |
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teach2talk’s™ Nouns! series of DVD videos introduce your child to a variety of basic nouns, which are among the first words a child typically acquires and important building blocks for a functional vocabulary and language. Volume 1 in the series, Body Parts (and Clothes to Go With ‘Em), introduces children to over 40 body parts and clothing items by using humor and song and by demonstrating each featured body part and clothing item in a variety of contexts to help your child’s understanding and usage of this core vocabulary. teach2talk`’s™ Nouns! videos may benefit a variety of children at different levels of language proficiency, from younger children aged less than two years getting a head start on growing their vocabularies, to children aged two to three years who got a late start talking or simply need some help building their functional vocabularies, to older children with more significant language and developmental delays. |
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teach2talk’s™ Verbs! series of DVD videos introduces your child to a variety of basic building block verbs, which are critical to a child’s functional vocabulary and ability to start speaking in sentences. Volume 1 in the series, Action Verbs, introduces children to over 30 action verbs by using humor and song and by demonstrating each verb in a variety of contexts to help further your child’s understanding and usage of this core vocabulary. These videos may benefit a variety of children at different levels of language proficiency, from younger children aged less than two years getting a head start on growing their vocabularies, to children aged two to three years who got a late start talking or simply need some help building their functional vocabularies, to older children with more significant language and developmental delays. |
Why Jenny Started teach2talk
When Evan was first diagnosed with autism, Jenny went into full–scale protective mother and “Google® Researcher” mode. In the difficult first days after Evan’s diagnosis, one of the things she searched for online were educational videos for Evan, but there weren’t a lot out there, and she wasn’t particularly happy with the few products she could find.
While working with Evan, Sarah used video modeling to teach him play skills. Evan made impressive gains in the play skills modeled for him – some of which were skills with which he wasn’t making much progress in face to face therapy!
For example, when Evan was being taught play skills in a one-on-one therapy setting (not incorporating video modeling), he had a hard time grasping the concept that an object used in play could stand in for another object – for example, pretending that a cup is a hat for an action figure, or that a wooden block is a chair for a doll. Evan would stubbornly insist “No, that is not a chair, it is a block,” and just couldn’t make the leap. However, when Evan was shown play incorporating substitution of one object for another using video modeling, he immediately started using pretend substitutions in his play in a wide variety of contexts.
Evan made so much progress that Sarah decided to initiate her own formal research project to study the use of video modeling to teach play skills to children. Evan, and other children in Sarah’s study, showed impressive gains in their play skills through video modeling techniques, and even began generalizing their new play skills outside of the therapy setting to their daily routines. This was consistent with research conducted by others showing that video modeling is a very effective method to teach new concepts to children, including children with autism and other developmental disorders.
Jenny and Sarah also created additional videos to teach other language concepts, such as answering questions, sharing and having conversations, using video modeling and the other therapeutic techniques which are used in teach2talk’s™ video products.
Because Evan and Sarah’s other clients made such impressive improvements using the techniques incorporated in teach2play’s™ products, Jenny and Sarah got excited about the potential of creating professionally produced products based on those techniques and making them available to other children and their families. After a lot of planning, research, discussion and preparation, teach2talk™ was born.
As the team behind teach2talk, Jenny contributes her first hand knowledge of the entertainment and publishing industries, and her very personal understanding of what parents whose children need extra help want and need, while Sarah contributes her extensive clinical experience and understanding of children’s speech and language, social, and play development. Together, they are teach2talk.
Jenny’s and Sarah’s hope is that teach2talk’s™ products will help other children as much as they have helped Jenny’s son and Sarah’s other clients, and will provide a useful complement to traditional therapy and teaching methods, which can both be used by parents in their own homes and on their own schedules, as well as administered by teachers, therapists and other professionals to supplement their current therapy and instruction programs.
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