It may seem like it's just fun and games.
"We set it up so that the hands on encourages them to use their speech and language skills," said Dr. Carol Hill, head of speech and language pathology at Hardin-Simmons University.
It's a camp for children that have developmental delays in speech and language skills. So the activities that seem like fun, are really helping their communication skills.
"We incorporate their goals like if they're working on different speech sounds, we use words that target those sounds that help them develop using those words in conversation," said Kimberly Fogle, student clinician.
And it's being around other kids that helps with these developmental skills too.
"The kids got a lot of hands-on communication, and they're speaking with other children. You know they might not get that interaction with other children at home. So when they get here, they're producing a lot more speech," said student clinician Austin Conger. "It's very beneficial for the kids to be speaking to other kids. Just kind of get that social skill."
But they aren't the only ones learning. This camp, now in it's ninth year, helps senior speech pathology majors get outside of their textbooks.
"You finally realize everything you've been studying for you can put to use with these children. And it's just a great experience to get to actually use all the hard work that I've put into text books into helping children out," said Conger.
That's because it's all about the hands-on learning for the college students too.
"I've finally gotten to put a lot of the things I've learned into practice," said Fogle. "And I've gotten to see, have some real-life experiences doing what a speech pathologist gets to do."
"We set it up so that the hands on encourages them to use their speech and language skills," said Dr. Carol Hill, head of speech and language pathology at Hardin-Simmons University.
It's a camp for children that have developmental delays in speech and language skills. So the activities that seem like fun, are really helping their communication skills.
"We incorporate their goals like if they're working on different speech sounds, we use words that target those sounds that help them develop using those words in conversation," said Kimberly Fogle, student clinician.
And it's being around other kids that helps with these developmental skills too.
"The kids got a lot of hands-on communication, and they're speaking with other children. You know they might not get that interaction with other children at home. So when they get here, they're producing a lot more speech," said student clinician Austin Conger. "It's very beneficial for the kids to be speaking to other kids. Just kind of get that social skill."
But they aren't the only ones learning. This camp, now in it's ninth year, helps senior speech pathology majors get outside of their textbooks.
"You finally realize everything you've been studying for you can put to use with these children. And it's just a great experience to get to actually use all the hard work that I've put into text books into helping children out," said Conger.
That's because it's all about the hands-on learning for the college students too.
"I've finally gotten to put a lot of the things I've learned into practice," said Fogle. "And I've gotten to see, have some real-life experiences doing what a speech pathologist gets to do."
