Shadow Narrative is broken up into two parts.

A) The first example of Shadow Narrative consists of Narrating the child's actions. Every action the child takes is put into words. This can mean everything from "There goes Billy down the hall!" as the child runs around the house, to "You put the block up on top. Up goes the block." This helps the child hear the words for the actions that they're doing. Shadow Narrative can be used almost any time, from play-time to brushing their teeth. Take a couple of minutes several times a day to practice this strategy.

B) The second example of Shadow Narrative involves narrating your own actions. "Look Billy, I'm cooking macaroni." "First I'm going to go get some water from the faucet." Again this doesn't take much time, and allows the child to hear the words that are associated with the activities of daily living.

This is an intervention strategy where the facilitator doesn't say anything until the child utters a vocalization. Then the facilitator imitates exactly what the child says. For instance if Billy has a ball in his hand, and he gives it to the person he's working with, and says "Bah-," then the facilitator would reply with exactly what he said: "Bah-." You can follow up your reply with a word you think the child was trying to communicate, i.e.: Billy hands you a ball, says "Bah-" and your reply is "Bah-, ball." If the child makes elaborate gibberish, attempt to mimic it as exactly as possible. Billy says "ah-he-huoooo", you reply "ah-he-huoooo" exactly. This constitutes one dialogue frame. A dialogue frame has one turn per communicative partner.

Mutual Imitation can be difficult for some facilitators because unlike Shadow Narrative, you aren't initiating the conversation, the child is. The child might be playing a lot with the therapist, but not talking. It might be awkward, but the facilitator must wait for the child to start the interaction. If the child communicates with the facilitator non-verbally, i.e. the child gives the facilitator an object and provides eye-contact, the facilitator may accept the object with a non-verbal head nod or smile.

The point of this exercise is to show the child conversational turn taking. Starting off with one dialogue frame, and hopefully expanding to several turns of conversation. In addition, Mutual Imitation is a way to shape imitation skills. It also supports the child's attempts at speech by validating the child's efforts.

I use peanut butter for lingual range of motion exercises. Specifically I put PB on lips like lipstick to practice lip-licking, and to observe if they can: clear their lips, trace their lip line right-left in-part or In-full and use their teeth to clear their lips without the use of their tongue. I watch labial movement to observe oral strengths and weaknesses as well as how much lingual lateralization is being incorporated.

I put PB on nose, chin, and cheeks to practice and encourage lingual range of motion and lingual extension. But the child Just thinks this activity is yummy & fun. Peanut butter, from texture, weight, and temperature, provokes attempts to remove it with tongue lips & teeth. Other sticky congealing substances can be substituted if the child has an allergy. Others include chocolate syrup, jam, yogurt and even lip balm can work.

Most noise-makers require voiceless expiration, together with the coordinated movements of lip pursing, lip seal and abdominal control. The kazoo's emphasis is on voicing; this is an excellent instrument for encouraging young children to vocalize. This instrument works especially well with children exhibiting apraxia of speech, who may have trouble with volitional voicing. Practice with this instrument may help children gain volitional control over the production of voiced and voiceless speech sounds. Use this instrument together with noise makers that do not require voicing to activate them, such as the harmonica, to assist the child in controlling volitional voicing.

The harmonica is simply one of the most versatile blow toys around because it can be activated by expiration or inspiration. Harmonicas are sensitive enough to respond to a simple breathing pattern with only a marginal lip seal required. The easy activation encourages the child to quickly repeat and improve his ability.

Balloons are usually very difficult for little children to manage, but because they usually enjoy them, they are willing to try. Older siblings join in readily and make wonderful role models. A trick with making the balloon work with the child is by blowing it up yourself and letting the child hold it, let it go, and watch it fly away. During this part of the interaction, you can be stimulating the obvious words that go with this activity by asking questions like:

Blow? More? Bigger? This will stimulate an attempt to imitate those words or respond with hand gestures or a nod.

WARNING: Balloons may present a choking hazard. Use only under adult supervision, and inform your parents of the same.

These provoke making sound which works on lip pursing, lip strength, coordinated movement, expiratory control, blowing, and can translate into encouraging vocal play. My particular favorite is the unfurling party blower. Blowing, lip strength, lip pursing, lip seal are all required for the exercise. One thing to consider is that these party blowers vary from company to company; some unfurl easily, and some take a lot more effort to unfurl. All of the blowers generally unfurl more easily with repeated use. Your parent may want to use the blower several times before their child does to facilitate easier use.

Blowers also vary in design. Those with a cardboard tubing, usually only unfurl from blowing, while those with plastic blowers may or may not also include a horn. I'm particularly fond of the latter of the two, because it encourages the child to blow harder and produce the toot sound. So even thought they might be discouraged in their first few attempts at unfurling the blower because of the challenge, the prospect of hearing the noise is often enough to keep them attempting to blow harder. Wanna know which ones have a horn? Look down the tu'bing and there's a cross bar, there's a horn.

I use milk to encourage blowing, and lip pursing exercises. Lots of us use soap bubbles for this reason, but there are drawbacks to soapy bubbles. By the time the child blows, the soap film often drips down off the wand, and they don't see the cause and effect of blowing. It can also be hard to blow into small hole. Larger wand holds film for less time. You can use milky bubbles to transition into soapy bubbles. With straw in milk, contrast suck/blow thereby working on comparative skills and difference between reflexive skills and volitional skills. When child deliberately or incidently blow, it instantly has bubbles, and bubbles stay, providing immediate visual cause and effect feedback.

In addition to learning the coordinated movements for blowing, different straw diameters can be used while making milky bubbles. This provides practice of the coordinated movements of different size labial openings. Each change in diameter of the straw will encourage different size lip pursing practice and encourage proper lip sealing around the straw. When child is consistently able to blow bubbles, games to encourage expiration control can be initiated.