As you might already know if you follow this blog, Penguin is pretty much non-verbal, or minimally verbal, or pre-verbal, depending on which term you prefer to use. He’s also got a very strong visual sense, which he relies on heavily, for learning, communication, and more.
To play an activity of guessing smells, I couldn’t just ask him to close his eyes, sniff something, then tell me what it is. He won’t want to keep his eyes closed, wouldn’t like being blindfolded, and can’t tell me verbally what scent he’s recognising.
So, to do this activity, I put the items to identify in a glass each. This time we used lemon, apple, and onion.
I then covered each glass in fabric (in this case a discarded t-shirt) and used a piece of pipe cleaner to hold the fabric together (you could use anything that is fairly easy to remove, for revealing the items after guessing).
I also made three pictures, one of each item, with the word in writing on them as well.
Finally, I made sure the words needed were readily available in Penguin’s speech app, so that I could model how to use it (we’re learning) without having to pause to fiddle about with adding missing words etc. You could of course do this activity just as well without a speech app.
When I presented the activity to Penguin, I had placed the correct picture card on top of each item, and we started off by having a sniff to establish that each scent was matching the pictured item for each sample.
I then put the picture cards to the side, shuffled the samples, and gave the picture cards to Penguin, so that he could do the matching.
We had a slight issue with the matching exercise, caused in part by Penguin being very keen on lemon, and in part by us having used PECS for communication when he was younger. (PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System, and we don’t use it much anymore as it mainly works for requests, and because a solid AAC system offers so much more). Basically, what happend is that Penguin loved the smell of the lemon, and he therefor gave the picture card to me, to request having the lemon, rather than putting it on the sample.
But with a little bit more explaining, showing and slight prompting, we completed the activity, and revealed the items. And Penguin was then very quick to grab the lemon! 😋
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Linking up with:
Sensational Learning with Penguin 
It was interesting to read how you adapted this exercise for penguin to do it without it all becoming too much – I can imagine how horrid it would feel to be blindfolded and non/pre verbal when so much of your communication would be visual. #spectrumsunday
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Thank you Lynne! Yes, he’d be uncomfortable in every way…
Adaptations can come in so many different forms. I hope some of the things we do can be of use/inspiration to other parents and/or teachers etc. x
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What a brilliant exercise! School have been doing some sensory activities with Joseph which is helping to develop his language about likes and dislikes ☺️
#SpectrumSunday
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Thank you! That’s brilliant to hear, about his school. Sensory activities are so much more than ‘messy play’. x
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This looks like a brilliant game, I can totally see why the PECS confusion happened, brilliant that Penguin remembered how to do it and that you got round it xx
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Thank you! Yes, he never had a problem with grasping the basics of PECS, and it’s obviously firmly rooted in him, but it’s such a limited system. x
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What a brilliant idea for teaching children about their senses. (Apologies for the stupid question and for not Googling, but what is an AAC system?)
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Thank you! I’m glad you ask: AAC stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, and it basically means any form of alternative communication system which is used either as support or replacement for speech. Often these are picture based systems, but you also have things like signing, Makaton, text-to-speech apps etc. x
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This is a lovely idea, and very interesting to read. I used to work with children with speech delays (in a past life it feels now!) and was always interested in the amazing things the session workers used to come up with – they’d love this. Thanks for linking up to #ablogginggoodtime
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Thank you Sarah! That’s really good to hear, especially as you have experience from working with children who this could be particularly relevant to 🙂. I love coming up with ideas on how we can work on learning, in creative and (hopefully!) fun ways x
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This sounds like a fun activity and I love how you have adapted it so that it works for Penguin. #thesatsesh
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Thank you very much! x
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#thesatsesh a lovely idea, as long as the onion doesn’t end up in the toy box after 🙂
I like the idea that he can use his skill set rather than working without it…often we ask children to enhance skills they don’t have.
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Very true re skills, thank you. And no stray onions lol x
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What a fab activity – worthwhile, fun and building connections…. all my lot love lemon too – Penguin has good taste! I am in awe of you and how you are flexible, resilient and patient as a parent when things don’t quite go to plan with a task. XX #thesatsesh xx
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Thank you again lovely! Haha, yes, he’s got a selective but fine palate lol 😋As for every parent, it happens occassionaly that my patience too runs thin, but for most of the time I just really enjoy us working on things together! ♥️xx
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What a great activity! I love the idea of a smelling game 🙂 #BlogCrush
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Thank you very much, Alice! ☺️x
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Fab activity and great that you have demonstrated how to not be afraid to make adaptations to suit the individual. Thanks for linking up with #globalblogging
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Thank you! I think it’s really key, when it comes to learning activities for children like our Penguin, to consider the individual learners needs, interests, strengths, preferences etc. 🙂x
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