Thursday, May 16, 2013

Super Duper Publications Review

As most of you already know, my nearly 2 year old son is Autistic. His Autism makes the way I approach his learning differ from that of other children. 

While it is always important to make learning fun for kids, with many children, they will still stay focused and retain the information, but with my son, he has a very very hard time concentrating on anything that is not interesting to him.

I am always looking for new and exciting ways to teach him.

One of the biggest areas he needs to make progress in is his speech. He can speak, he speaks most words very clearly, and it is easy to understand him, he even knows most any word you can think of, but he does not use organic conversation.

He can say how he feeling and what he wants, but it is only present tense. He is not able to say things like, "I was sad when I fell down yesterday" or "I would like a new bike for my birthday" it's more like, "Drink Please" "I'm MAD!" etc.

Often times he even has trouble with the proper way to ask for something, and he actually asks and answers himself. So he will say, "Do you want a cookie?" "Yes please".

While I am VERY proud of him for everything he can do and all the progress he has made, if there is a way to help him achieve more skills, of course I want to do that. And if there is no way, then that is just fine too, but I am certainly going to try.

While finding games that encourage learning and building skills are not hard to come by, finding ones that encourage and improve speech is not that easy. I don't want just any game from a company I never heard of. I want products I believe in from a company I trust.

That is why I turned to Super Duper Publications. What I really love about Super Duper Inc is that they have a whole page dedicated only to Autism. That did wonders to boost my confidence in Super Duper products.

I know that they know what they are doing, and that they make products that are actually suited toward my son and his special needs. That means everything to me.

I got 4 different games to try for my son, and I am so pleased with them. Even before he tried them, I could tell they would be wonderful for him.


As soon as he saw the box, he opened it(after I had closed it back), and the first word out of his mouth was "SPEECH". He has Speech therapy like 3 days a week at school, so I assume he has seen one or more of these games used in his Speech Therapy. That just gave me more confidence in these products.


All About You, All About Me Fun Deck:

This wonderful little 56 card deck is full of cards with personal questions printed on them. Fun and easy things like "What is your favorite color?" "Tell me about your favorite ice cream flavor" and so on.

The are great because not only does it encourage and improve reading skills by having him read the questions aloud, but it also teaches the proper way to respond to ask and respond to a question, but also requires him to think of the answers. talking about not the name of his favorite flavor, but a description of it.

Describing and in depth explaining are areas that he could use a lot of help, so this game is really good for him.

He does not have the concept mastered yet and does struggle a bit to answer the questions, but that is actually great. If he could do it perfectly already, if would not be beneficial to do it. Pushing his limits is the best way to help him reach his goals.

He likes to play this, so that is what really matters. He has fun and builds skills at the same time. You can't ask for much more than that.


Topic Talk:

This game is so unique. I relate it vaguely to uno. You have to be the first to get rid of all your cards.

The game contains:
  • 75 topic cards
  • 70 talk cards
  • 30 question cards
  • 20 doubletalk cards
  • 10 wild cards
  • 5 minute timer
The Topic cards are the guidelines for the conversation, and then you use your talk cards to add a comment to the conversation, Double Talk Cards to add 2 comments, Question cards to ask a question about someone else's comment, and Wild Cards can be used as any of the Talk, Double Talk or Question Cards.

It is really a fun game. It is great for building conversation skills and demonstrating how a natural conversation flows. People all talk about the same topic and can ask and answer questions related to the topic. You should wait until one person is finished and not interrupt. It is great.

It is for grades 2 and up, and since he is only in Kindergarten, it is a little higher than his currently level, but I love getting an early jump on it. Maybe with continued play, he can achieve these skills ahead of grade level. And if not, it is still a fin way to play and bond.


Lids 'n Lizards:

I think this might be his favorite out of these games. He loves to stack the lids, and line up the lizards, plus he loves to actually play.



There are a few ways to play. You can do it as "What doesn't belong", Category grouping and many other ways.

The primary objective of the game though is to flip over a lid(which will have a magnet underneath) and name the object as well as the category.



Jr is actually AMAZING at that. Instead of taking turns, I just let hem do each on himself and collect all the lizards. He loves that.


He can name every single one and the category it goes in. "Socks. They are Clothes" "Hamburger. It is a Food". It is adorable. I am so proud at how wonderful he does. It is so much fun to watch him play and praise him for each correct response. He loves all the praise. And is even always saying of himself. "You did it! Yay!"


Magne Talk Early Classifying:

He loves this one too. This is the first thing he wanted to play with. He did not need any help, or even directions. He knew exactly what to do and how to do it.




You match the item magnets to the corresponding category section on the magnet board. He didn't miss a beat.

Then when I asked him to say the names and categories too, he did and got those right as well. He did so well and so fast. It was completely natural to him.

He was so proud of himself. It warmed my heart so much to see him that happy and confident.

This is a great tool to help teach the names of the items(for those that do not know already). I used similar images when helping my son learn. This will be so wonderful to help my little girl learn her words. She is about 18 months old, so now is a great time to get started, and she likes to "play" with this, so it works out great.

I am so beyond impressed with these amazing Super Duper Publications products. I even had fun with these, but seeing my son(and even my daughter) enjoy these was so wonderful.

If you are looking for a way to make learning fun, they check out Super Duper Publications. You will love them I guarantee.

*Although I received these products t no cost to facilitate a review, all opinions are 100% my own*

1 comment :

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