1st Edition

Zedie and Zoola’s Playtime Cards: 25 Games to Lift Communication Barriers from the Playground

By Vanessa Lloyd-Esenkaya Copyright 2023
    32 Pages 23 Color & 34 B/W Illustrations
    by Speechmark

    Playtime is essential for children’s wellbeing and provides key opportunities to make friends.

    This pack contains 25 beautifully illustrated cards containing ideas for fun playground games that draw from Zedie & Zoola’s Playful Universe. They are designed to be used alongside:

    • Zedie & Zoola Light Up the Night – a colourful storybook, which draws on themes relating to friendships, neurodiversity, participation, and advocacy.
    • Zedie & Zoola’s Playful Universe – an evidence-based guide offering additional advice for adults to use the cards effectively, with helpful contextual information relating to child development, communication differences, and play, to assist in making playtimes more accessible.

    The cards and storybook explore the topic of communication differences through engaging characters and games, and the accompanying guide offers additional advice for adults to use the cards effectively, with helpful contextual information to assist in making playtimes more accessible.

    Zedie and Zoola’s Playtime Cards are suitable for use at both school and at home by children aged 6-9. They are an essential resource for anyone looking for new ways to foster an inclusive environment to help children with different communication styles engage and play with their peers.

    Intended for use in educational settings and/or therapy contexts under the supervision of an adult. This is not a toy.

    Cards: There are 25 cards in total and each card gives children instructions on playing a unique, simple game. The resource features cartoon aliens named Zedie and Zoola and each game draws from an imaginary universe of characters. There are two subsets of games: two-player and multi-player. Each card will include: subset type, title and image, number of players, any props needed, aim of the game, instructions to play, any new terms.

    Biography

    Vanessa Lloyd-Esenkaya holds a PhD in child psychology. Her research explores the social side of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and is published in scientific journals. She is currently training to be a speech and language therapist and lives in Kent with her family.