Cariboo! The Perfect Game for Speech Therapy

You’ve probably heard of Cariboo, the perfect game for speech therapy!

Cariboo is no longer in production (I’m not sure why! I feel like all the SLPs in the world must have convinced the company that they need to bring this game back!) But, if you hunt around, you can probably find one in a thrift store, or maybe in a Buy Nothing group. I know one SLP actually found two Cariboo games last school year when she was actively looking around.

You can replace the Cariboo cards with any other cards of your choosing! The slow way is to recreate cards the exact size and shape and slide them in. The faster way is to just attach your speech therapy cards to the top of the existing cards with a bit of sticky tack. I have seen other SLPs add velcro to the existing cards and velcro on their speech therapy targets. Velcro can take up a lot of room in storage though, so keep that in mind!

I’ve used Cariboo to target:

•  Articulation (using my mini articulation cards!)
• AAC (cut outs from my core board flipbook, or you can use icons from core boards for your student’s chosen symbol pack) — while I would not recommend only working on AAC by matching activities, it can be a part of your intervention as long as you are including lots of authentic opportunities for communication and aided language stimulation!)
• Language and Literacy (using icons from my language visuals for describing, story telling, or even many of my themed units have basic concepts sorts or other small pictures you can use)

As you can see, my client was working on /k/ in the initial and final position.

To play, you pick a card (provided with the game). Each card has a color, number, letter, or shape on it. You need to match the card to one of the articulation pictures on one of the doors.

A lot of times, I don’t worry about using the deck of cards provided with the game, depending on the age and interest of the child. For little ones, sometimes I just tell them to pick a door. If it’s an articulation word, we say it before we open it. If it’s an AAC word, we find it before we open it (or the child can select the word on their device to request that button). If it’s a language concept, they answer a prompt first.

Then, use the purple key to open the door and try to collect all of the bouncy balls! One you find all of them and slide them down the tube on the right, the treasure chest pops open! I’ve used the Cariboo game for speech therapy and loaned it out to other speech therapists as well. It’s definitely worth the money if you can pick one up at a thrift store!