Niamh Foy

• Master of Speech and Language Sciences
• Trades & Charades: The card game that puts Speech and Language Therapy clients on a level playing field

‘Trades & Charades’ is a new card game designed for school-aged children with speech, language, and communication needs. Players are allocated 10 cards, each containing a common English word and a corresponding black-and-white drawing. Players must use gesture and non-speech sounds to prompt other player/s to guess said word. Players are also given two ‘Speech Coins’ for every ten cards, which they can cash in at any time to say three words – for example, if one was struggling to gesture ‘Newcastle’, one could cash in a Speech Coin to say ‘Geordie, Tyne, Shearer’.

The game is to be used by speech and language therapists (SLTs) working in therapeutic contexts with children. 'Trades and Charades' was created by Niamh Foy, a student SLT, under the supervision of Dr. Carol Moxam; the aim of this scholarship was to improve and pilot the game, and subsequently release it for free for SLTs.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Project supervisor: Dr Carol Moxam