Picture Scene Activities for Adults

Picture Scene Activities for Adults 

What are Picture Scene activities?

Picture scenes are nothing but scenes of various situations represented in a pictorial form. It can be a simple picture of a playroom to something as complex as a large playground. Children and adults use picture scenes to improve speech-language and cognitive-linguistic skills. Yes, you heard it right. Even adults. Picture scene activities are versatile and open-ended that way. These are in the form of animated as well as real-life-like and there are various opportunities in which you can use them with adults.

Can you use Picture Scenes with adults?

Yes, time and again adults use picture scenes. During group sessions, picture scenes are used to generalize speech and language skills. Also, some picture scenes can be a great conversation starter. Based on the need of the adult, picture scenes are selected i.e. based on functional communication needs, interests, or occupation.

What speech, language and cognitive-linguistic goals would you work on using Picture Scene activities?

1. Vocabulary

Picture scenes usually have themes like a birthday scene or park scene etc. These different themes can be used to improve vocabulary skills in adults with language disorders. For example in the case of Aphasia, where adults have word-finding difficulties, such activities can be used.

2. Verbs

Verbs are very important when it comes to strengthening language skills. Most of these picture scene activities contain people doing different tasks. With verbs, you can also talk about the tenses like present or past. Adults with Aphasia find it useful from using verbs in picture scene activities. It helps strengthen their language skills.

3. Nouns/pronouns

Nouns/pronouns give important information about individuals or objects. And when language is affected in individuals post-stroke, naming skills can be targeted using picture scenes. You can ask simple questions like “Who is this?” or “Who is swimming?”.

4. Prepositions

Understanding and using prepositions in conversations is essential for effective communication. And picture scene activities are perfect for targeting the same. You can use various prepositions such as in, on, under, etc. These activities are effective to improve the generalization of the prepositions as well.

5. Adjectives

Adults post-stroke with language difficulties may have difficulty in the comprehension and expression of adjectives. This is also due to the fact that adjectives are abstract in nature and they may not easily be comprehensible. Picture scenes are an excellent activity to improve on adjectives.

6. Sentence formation

We use language to communicate with one another. And we almost always speak in sentences. Adults with impaired language skills have difficulty in comprehension as well as the formation of sentences. The sentences may be incomplete or grammatically incorrect. Picture scenes help in a way where they provide visual input rather than a written modality to improve sentence formation skills.

7. Wh- Questioning

When we talk, we use different questions. Questions like “Where”, “What” “Who”, “Why” and “How” are common questions that we use in daily conversations. Picture scene activities help to improve on questioning skills of adults.

8. Following directions

Following directions requires an adult to have good comprehension skills. When adults have comprehension skills impairments, I find picture scene activities a good place to start using simple directions. You can start using simple step commands and increase the complexity. Some examples include “Touch the boy who is sleeping.”

9. Narrations

Adults use picture scene activities to improve fluency and articulation skills as well. You can show these pictures to the individual and ask them to describe the pictures. The instruction can be “Tell me what is happening in this picture”. Here the goal would be to focus on the fluency and articulation rather than the content of the narrative. If working on the speech production as in the case of adults with right hemisphere damage, then the focus would be on the content of the narration.

10. Conversations

Various conversations can be generated between the therapist and the adult client based on the theme of the picture scenes. You can work on questioning, conversational turn-taking, shift, and maintenance skills.  Adults who have difficulties with fluency and articulation use picture scene activities for conversations.

11. Attention and Memory

Adults post-stroke or trauma can often present with cognitive-linguistic impairments. Picture scene activities can be a great way to start off working on attention and memory skills using visual modalities.

12. Inferencing, Reasoning, and Problem-solving

You can use some picture scenes that are specifically designed to target inferencing, reasoning, and problem-solving skills in adults with cognitive-linguistic difficulties. So using these picture activities helps to improve these skills.

 

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