Strategies for Conversation at the Grocery Store

All over the internet I see different therapy strategies to get kids to communicate. However, what I see less of is telling parents how then to naturally incorporate it into their child's life. We do this with Kreed every single day. Probably an advantage of living with a behavior therapist! We use every moment we can as a teachable moment. As I said in my last post- sometimes all you need is 1 minute to do this! Here are some very basic strategies to  generalize language for your child. Although this is tailored to kids and adults using an AAC device, this can work for verbal kids to as a way to increase their language and answering questions.

1. Ask the child WHERE you are going

2. Use a visual grocery list and ask the child WHAT you are going to get

3. Ask WHO is going on the trip

4. Allow your child to also help retrieve items so there is also RECEPTIVE understanding.

These are fast an easy ways to reinforce basic WH questions your child may learn in therapy and begin to understand real life aspects of going to the grocery store.

We do this often for Kreed in different ways. Here are some videos highlighting this, although not always specific to grocery store- sometimes I'm asking a WH question about other places as well, but you get the general idea. Each of these moments takes maybe a minute or two! Thinking about implementing all of this does not take much time at all. Normally I'm asking him these questions right before we leave and I might re-ask just as we arrive at the store and maybe some time during the store. But again, these are not ten minute lessons. Most of this is LESS than a minute long!




I really hope this helps to illustrate how to carry over things your  child may learn in therapy but even more, how you can just use a device or language in any way at home with your kiddo. These are short and fast ways to increase your child's language and ability to answer questions!