Description:

Dino Cave Kids: Sounds from the Dino Cave is a series of nine DVDs, 30-45 minutes each, that use multisensory techniques to help kids recognize and create different speech sounds. Each DVD targets specific sounds:

• Volume 1: M, P, and B
• Volume 2: W, H, and Y
• Volume 3: N, T, and D
• Volume 4: K, Q, G, and Ng
• Volume 5: F and V
• Volume 6: S and Z
• Volume 7: L and R
• Volume 8: Ch and J
• Volume 9: Sh, Zh, Th, and Th

From the company's online store, you can purchase individual volumes for $19.95, or the complete set for $149.
What's Included:

The complete set includes 150 printable pages, including coloring pages that highlight the specific sounds and lists of early language and cognitive concepts, phrases used, and pre-reading skills for each sound. More support materials can be found on the company's website and blog.

Background:

According to the Dino Cave Kids LLD site, the program is developed by "early childhood professionals- speech-language pathologists, parents, teachers and occupational therapists with decades of experience in many settings. We are here to provide you with the most up-to-date knowledge in early learning, and to give you flexible, functional tools for home and school. Dino Cave Kids speaks to kids in their language, making learning a sensory rich, light-hearted experience. Our mission is to create fun learning tools that help give voice to all young children who want to be heard."

From the Website's FAQ:

"Question: What can my child learn from the videos?

"Answer: In Sounds From the Dino Cave, Miss Kylie introduces sounds with verbal, visual and tactile cues. As kids follow the models, they practice hearing and making sounds in new ways. The silly dinosaurs show kids how to "tune in" to the sensory aspects of sounds. They practice hearing and speaking words and phrases loaded with essential early concepts and they practice pre-reading skills in special direct teaching segments.

"In addition to the speech sounds, poems, rhymes, and other sound play, your child will hear a great variety of animal and environmental sounds. Each volume presents its own animal sounds, nature sounds and other environmental sounds like musical instruments, machines and vehicles. Helping your child tune in to these sounds can foster their imitation of sounds even before they can imitate speech sounds."

First Impressions:

The graphics are bright and inviting, and the program has a sense of fun that will appeal to kids. Reinforcing speech skills at home is a great idea, but most parents don't know how to go about doing that. Sitting down to a DVD and learning together about speech sounds seems like a great start, though the complete set is a little pricey for parents. Ask your speech therapist for suggestions on what sounds to concentrate on.

Professional Opinion:

I asked Sandy Furia, a speech-language pathologist and the co-author of T.A.S.C.: Tools for Achieving Social Confidence, to give us her thoughts on Dino Cave Kids. Her review:

"Dino Cave Kids: Sounds from the Dino Cave is an excellent supplement to traditional speech and language therapy. It provides lessons for phonetic placement and articulation practice as well as pre-reading skills. The portion of the video that demonstrates correct phonetic placement is particularly helpful because it allows children to view the articulators during production of phonemes that are not typically visible.

This video series is best utilized with children ages 4 to 6 years of age. Children under age four also enjoyed the video. However, it appeared to have limited therapeutic value for children under age four. The children that I used volume 6 of the series with were very receptive to all the lessons presented in the video. The dinosaur theme in the video held their interest. Children ages 5 and 6 were able to participate in lessons with little guidance from the therapist. The video showed multiple examples of all therapeutic targets allowing for adequate practice. Stimulus items are presented quickly; therefore, younger children required continuous adult guidance in order to participate in the lessons as they were intended.

Overall, all the children that viewed the video found it very reinforcing. This video series is best used by a speech pathologist or teacher as a reinforcing supplement to traditional instruction."