Famela Restrepo

LEI 4724
Activity File 7
Activity name: Couplets
Source: Helgeson, E., & Willis, S. (1987). Activities. In Handbook of group activities for
impaired older adults (Vol. 9, p. 28). New York, New York: Haworth Press.
Equipment: list of well-known matching words (e.g., black-white, day-night, odd-even, updown, Jack-Jill, Romeo-Juliet, etc.)
Description of activity:
Players divide into small groups and are giving s list of words for which they are required to
come up with a common match. Groups can compete to finish their lists. Give different list to
each group may help avoid the problem of other group overhearing answers.
Leadership consideration:
The moderator will explain the activity by giving some examples like hit-run or Samson and
Delilah. Then the therapist will play the role of facilitator by interacting with participant by
asking for some examples too, so they will feel more comfortable when they start the activity.
This activity work best for small groups (5 to 10 participants) but also this could also be played
as large group activity by listing one of their words to be matched on the chalkboard and as a
group generate its pair. The time involved will be between 10 to 50 minutes, depending on how
many people are participating.
Adaptations:
Participant with Dysgraphia. Participants may benefit from having the words and their matches
printed on separate cards. The task then would be to match the appropriate words. Also the
facilitator may note that may be more than one common match beyond those listed. Give credit
for all responses that make sense
Participant with Dysphasia. One helpful adaptation for this activity will be instead of using
words cards, you can replaced the word with pictures, so the participants will be able to
recognize the other matching picture.