Audra Jensen: The sooner they learn it, the earlier they learn it, the better they're able to blend in with their peers, which is really what we want them to be able to do
Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started.
Audra Jensen: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This week, we are sharing a really fun game to help with teaching pronouns, which is a really tough skill to teach. But before we jump in, did you know we offer exclusive bonus content and freebies for our members in our Facebook group? So we are building that community.
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Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, we, have added a free resource almost every episode, I would say, so I'm trying to pop those into the group as fast as we record. And so once you're in, you'll find them all in the file library, or you can always message me or Audra for help.
Audra Jensen: And if you're not watching us on YouTube, go find us there. Especially for episodes like this one. We are showing a cute video today of the game that I'm going to talk about. So make sure you find us on YouTube which is @themisfitbehaviorists over there. So let's get to it. And if you have ever had a little one learning those tricky words like I and you and my and your, this episode is for you because they can be super confusing.
And so today I was working on a pronoun resource in some of the stuff that I was working on. And I remember this game that, I think it was a speech therapist that, that taught this to my son, Isaac. And then I started using it over the years with the many kids that I was working. And it was a fantastic little game that, and I don't know if you work with kids with autism, it is a common, thing for them to be confused with pronouns.
And so many of these little kids, they get mixed up and they use I for me and you and your, and they get them all mixed up. And this was just a really simple game that we played with him and it just helped him learn that concept. And I started using it. It is super fun and cute. And so I thought I would share it. So Caitlin, have you seen that struggle of pronouns over the years?
Caitlin Beltran: Yes, I'm thinking of a learner I have now.He's a little guy, he's in kindergarten and it is so hard for him and he will always say things like you kicked your teacher. And I'm like, no, I didn't kick my teacher. and even though right now, I would venture to say most people know what he's saying and they don't think that I kicked his teacher, but as the kids get older, and if they're still struggling with this, this can be such a huge, functional life skill for them to advocate for themselves if they're in pain or if they have a headache or are hurt. So it is really important as the kids get older that they are learning the correct pronouns.
Audra Jensen: Right, they really are the building block for that good communication. The sooner that they learn, it's really some of those little words are so important for them to learn. The sooner they learn them, it's not only good grammatically for them to learn, but it helps them blend in with that social environment, which is why it's really, really important.
Caitlin Beltran: The sooner they learn it, the earlier they learn it, the better they're able to blend in with their peers, which is really what we want them to be able to do. Absolutely. It just makes that conversation flow peer to peer more naturally, which is what we want because then they're both enjoying the conversation and both getting that social reinforcement.
Audra Jensen: So here's the gist of it. It's really, really simple. Works best in a one on one environment where you can really control the environment. Obviously, it's a little harder in school, so, but it's really good when you're working one on one with a student. Works really good in like a speech therapy session or if you have an ABA classroom where you're doing one on one or discrete trials or just, you're doing table time with a student. So you'll need sticky notes, you need markers, maybe some stuffed animals or dolls that you're working with. Obviously best if you have very clear boy girl vibes at this stage in life, we're not worried about gender issues. We're just very clear boy and girl.
We're worried about grammatical phrases at this point. Because of the nature of pronouns and learning the I and the me and the your and stuff, this particular game is really for a one on one setting, and you'll see why when I explain how the game works. You also want to set it up so you're not getting a lot of errors. So making sure you have that controlled environment so you're not initiating, because pronouns are really tricky. You want to make sure that you're not initially setting it up so the learner's making a lot of errors you're having to correct because pronouns, it's really hard to correct pronouns.
Because when you're saying you, when you're trying to correct an I, it gets really, really tricky. So you want to set it up really carefully, so that you're getting errorless right away. So you can get that functional, working it correctly from the beginning.
But it's really fun once you get that progress, and it's a really fun game, and they think it's hilarious. So this is how it works. So you basically, you have post it notes, and in front of you as the teacher, you're going to put you and your on two separate sticky notes. And then in front of the learner, you're going to put I and my And usually I just start with that.
Later on, you can add he and his and she and her with the stuffed animals or whatever. And then what you basically do is you take turns pretending to hit a part of your body or something, pretending to bump your knee or to bump your elbow or something. And then you're pointing, whether you've used written words or like for some of your non readers, you might have a picture of a me and a my, and you're going to point to create the sentence, I hurt my knee, or if it's to the, if I was the one that did it, your learner's going to point to my sticky notes, and you're going to, you hurt your head, and the whole idea is to be very silly and funny about it.
And you'll see in the video that's exactly how it is. So you'll have in first, you're going to be pointing, the learner's going to be pointing to their own, I and my, and then they're going to point to your, you and your, and then that's how they start to learn the different I and my. And then, well, let's watch the video here and then I'm going to come back and talk about a few things after that.
We're working on pronouns. So, I'm going to have two here, and you're going to have two. And eventually, he's going to have two, too. We're going to start with our two first. So, I'm going to have you and your and you're going to have I am my, it's hard to write it sideways, yeah, and eventually he's gonna have, he, that's hard to write upside down too, I know, this is what we're gonna do, I am gonna go, uh, I, if it was you, I hurt my hand.
Okay, so like it's your turn to pretend to hit something. Okay. Okay, hit like your elbow or your head or something. Oh, no. Okay, here we go. Oh no! I hurt my hand! Okay, now I'm going to do it, and you're going to say the sentence, but this time point to the pronouns here when you say the sentence, because I'm going to be the one to do it.
Okay, let's see, I'm going to Oh! Oh no! Ow! Say it with me. I hurt my Oh, except it's mine, so you have to do this one. Oh, yeah. You hurt your knee. Yes! That's it. Okay. Okay, now he's gonna go. Okay, you can make a sentence. He hurt his head. That's right, okay.
Audra Jensen: Okay. So now you saw what the game looked like. What's your initial thought of, does it make sense to you? Caitlin, what do you think?
Caitlin Beltran: I could definitely see myself or our speech therapist or even like a social skills setting using this and I could see the kids thinking it was really silly and so for that reason I think they would really buy into it and like it and it would create that like meaningful practice that we could do over and over again to get the repetition but still be functional because they're into it
Audra Jensen: Yes. So a couple of things that I think about the different types of times that I've used it. if I've had students who do get like too silly, then I'm very cautious about when to use it. I may choose not to use it for students like that. And we've all had students like that. So I may be cautious about using it.
Yeah. The other thing is I've used it in different ways. Like I've had, we've, I've given everybody, if we're having a couple of different people and we're working on the he and the she, you can have a couple of different people in a small group doing it that way. We've had Each of us have one fruit snack, and so like we'll take turns going I ate her fruit snack, or she ate my fruit snack, and again you have to have flexible thinkers to do it that way, or we're going to say I want her pencil, and again, you're using those sticky notes as your, that's your reference.
And then the other thing I think about is I mentioned in a little bit to make sure that you're using, references that fit the learner's communication. So for my son, he had written words because he was a reader, but for other students, you may use board maker symbols, or they may use communication devices, whatever system works for them, whatever it is.
And to make sure that the words are all separated, so you don't have a post it with all of the pronouns, but they're definitely different pronouns on each one, and that they're creating the sentence. And you can have more than just the pronouns. You can create multiple stickies to create an entire sentence that you're creating, which makes it really fun.
Caitlin Beltran: I love using the whole sentence frame because I feel like it's so clear and it's really concrete for a learner on the spectrum. It's almost like, you know, you mix and match and then they know where everything goes and I can see. I love the variation with maybe like the snack too, because, maybe like the fake injuries are getting too silly, but something like the fruit snacks for again, you could, it's so tiny, you could have 10 of them at one go.
Audra Jensen: a Fruit Loops, too.
Caitlin Beltran: practice. That's
Audra Jensen: did another time, we did the mini post its, and we wrote a bunch of little pieces of sentences, all the different types of sentences I thought of, everything I could think of, I put them all in the middle, and we took turns picking them out and creating sentences from the middle and seeing what kind of silly sentences we could create from that.
And those are, a little bit older learners that can do that. But again, and still focusing on those pronouns. That's where we were create, that's what was the focus. it just get creative, the different things. Post its, I tell you, I should have had stock in post its, the amount of post its I've gone through over the years.
Caitlin Beltran: I love that too because the pronoun thing, I've, we've all been there. I feel like when you're trying to prompt in the moment and you're like, my, and they're like, my, and I'm like, no, you're my. So it really makes it really clear. And I feel like once they learn the game, oh, that's where it is. It gives it that more errorless practice feel and then get that positive
Audra Jensen: That actually reminds me. It's another thing we've done is we put post its or like sticky notes on us.
Caitlin Beltran: Oh.
Audra Jensen: So then, and obviously I'm going to have your on me because I want them to reference me saying you and your even though I'm me when I reference myself. But yeah, when I'm having the learner, I'm going to have you and your on me because I want the learner referencing me. So yeah, those are different ideas that I was thinking about. So this week I've got a pronoun resource freebie for you. If you hop on over to that Facebook group, we'll put it in the file section there. So head over there. The other freebies we have housed over there.
And, catch us on YouTube if you're not watching there. I know you can listen and hopefully get something out of it there too. But you want to see the cute little, my little friend Sydney. You'll want to watch that on video. head over to YouTube, the Misfit Behaviors there and catch us there. And then next week, what are we talking about next week, Caitlin?
Caitlin Beltran: Next week, we are talking about addressing quote unquote problem behaviors through a skill building lens. So whether we go wanna call them lagging skills or skill deficits, instead of that you know, negative connotation of problem behaviors, but like flipping the script and talking about how we can teach skills to replace those behaviors without trying to play whack a mole and eliminate those behaviors one by one.
So definitely tune in for that. And if you're not on Facebook, then you can also find us on Instagram at the Misfit Behaviorists Podcast. So I'll try to link as many resources as we share there as well.
Audra Jensen: Excellent. All right. We'll see you next week.
Caitlin Beltran: Bye.
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