Yoga Activities for Speech Therapy

Movement is a great way to stimulate the body and mind! As a pediatric speech language pathologist and mother to two young children, I know children need movement breaks to increase engagement.  Research even supports that physical activity improves cognitive and executive functions, and academic achievement in young students!

This is why I incorporate movement-based activities into my speech therapy sessions.

Movement stimulates the mind and body and keeps us focused. Many individuals – myself included – become bored, disinterested, and fidgety, if we sit for too long.

Incorporating movement is particularly important during this pandemic as students are participating in more virtual sessions than ever before in history. Anecdotal evidence suggests this pandemic is greatly effecting children’s mental health.

So if there is anything I can do to spark joy, fuel interest, and increase engagement, I’m going to do it!

I created these yoga flashcards with this in mind!

Did you know that yoga intervention activities may also improve symptoms of anxiety among students?

Results from a randomized controlled trial of third-grade students who screened positive for symptoms of anxiety showed significant improvement in emotional and psychosocial quality of life in the intervention group when compared to the control group. (Bazzano et al., 2018)

Since I have been doing more remote/virtual sessions than ever before, I needed resources to get children to move while still addressing their speech and language goals. Thus, I made these Yoga Activities Flashcards!

What’s Included in this product? 

60 Yoga Flashcards

60 cards showing 12 different yoga poses to incorporate into your in-person OR virtual speech therapy sessions to target various speech and language areas

Hold the Pose Practice – 12 cards – yoga poses to increase student engagement and encourage them to get out of their seats and hold a selected pose for 10 seconds. These cards are a fun way to introduce yoga to children during your speech therapy sessions.

Rapid Naming – 12 cards  – hold a yoga pose and rapidly name items in a category (e.g. Name as many animals as you can while doing a child’s pose, name as many clothes as you can while doing a downward facing dog pose, etc.)

Articulation Practice – 12 cards – select a card and say a target sound or word containing the target sound 5 times while holding the yoga pose. Sometimes focusing on something like balance or movement is extremely motivating!

Recall and Name the Pose – 12 cards – flex that memory muscle – teach your student various memory strategies to retain the name of the pose and say it!

Open-ended Yoga Cards –12 cards –  write in a target goal on these 12 open-ended yoga cards to individualize as needed.

To purchase these flashcards to use during your speech therapy sessions or in your classrooms or at home, please click the link below:

Source: Bazzano, A. N., Anderson, C. E., Hylton, C., & Gustat, J. (2018). Effect of mindfulness and yoga on quality of life for elementary school students and teachers: results of a randomized controlled school-based study. Psychology research and behavior management, 11, 81–89. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S157503

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