CVC Articulation Practice Frames: A Speech Articulation Activity

Print out one (or all) of these "frames" and use them to practice CVC speech words. Simply slide the sheet into a sheet protector and write one sound in each circle using a dry erase marker. After the child says the word, erase one of the sounds and write in another. So if you're working on final /n/, you could do pan, man, can, ran, ban, etc. Then switch your vowel and do pen, ten, men, den, hen, etc. This is a great way to work on speech, phonemic awareness, and early reading skills at the same time.

Find It: A Speech Articulation Game

My daughter absolutely loved playing this Find It speech articulation game.

Supplies:
3-5 cups that aren't transparent (you're going to be hiding something underneath)
a simple sticker chart
articulation pictures (a mini-sized initial /f/ set can be found at the end of this post)
stickers
tape
something to hide under the cups (I used a smiley face clip.)

Set up:
Put a piece of tape on the top of each picture and tape a picture to the top of each upside-down up. Hide object (in my case, "Mr. Smiley") under a cup. Have stickers, sticker chart, and extra pictures handy.

Directions:
Every time you find the hidden object, you get a sticker on the chart. If you fill the chart you'll get a prize. The child must say the word (x1, x3, in phrase, or in sentence) in order to get you to lift the cup and check underneath. Whenever they find the object, remove the picture and replace it with one in your reserve. Ask the child to hide their eyes while you move the hidden object to a new cup. That's it. In 15 minutes you can easily get 1-10 productions of each of your target words and the student(s) will be enraptured the entire time. If you're playing with a group, simply have a sticker chart for each child and let them take turns guessing.

One-Syllable Initial S Printable Worksheet

We're still working on initial /s/ around here and I was trying to do something a little different. Here's a printable worksheet I made using some of the initial /s/ words and pictures from the initial /s/ picture card set. I made sure that each /s/ word included here uses a different vowel for co-articulation practice purposes.

I'm just planning on doing a simple hunt with it. Use the word from the list in a sentence and then you get to put a sticker on the matching picture. You could motivate a child to do this multiple times by marking all the pictures with gold stars and then switching colors and putting a second (or even third) color on each picture.

I know there's something more creative I could do with this worksheet, but I just can't think of anything right now. I'll send a virtual gold star and warm thoughts to anyone who posts other ideas of how to use this worksheet in the comments.

Speech Articulation (or Phonics) Game: Speech Tiles

If you have a piece of chalk and a laminate floor you can play this quick and easy speech game.

I have laminate floor tiles in my kitchen/dining room area. I know many schools also have tiles in their classrooms or hallways. Take a piece of chalk and draw letters scattered about on the floor tiles (test in an out of the way spot just to make sure it will wipe clean). If you're doing the game for phonics practice, use all 26 letters of the alphabet. If you're doing the game for speech practice, put your target sounds and a couple of easy extras in.



I was playing with two children, so I put two each of /k, s, f, and v/ (my target sounds) and I threw in /p and b/ just to fill out the floor and put in something fun and easy. I lined both kids up against the wall and then called out, "Stand by a /k/!" Both kids ran over to a /k/. I then asked each child to say, "/key, K, koi, coo/. Then I called out a new letter. They scramble to stand next to the new letter. This time I had them each say four VC syllables. Then another letter and another letter. In about 5 minutes, you can easily get 50 productions per child. Then I handed them each a washcloth. This time, after they said their syllables they got to wash away the letter. They loved it! We continued until all the letters had been erased and that was the end of the game. (This game can just as easily be used with sounds in isolation.)



(Inspiration for this activity here.)

One Manipulative - Multitude of Concepts and Skills

(I apologize for the overly bright colors in the pictures. Photography is not my area of expertise. They give you the general idea though.)


Concepts:
colors
shapes
big/little
same/different
more/less
prepositions (on, under, over, by, up, down, etc.)
simple arithmetic (counting, simple addition and subtraction, etc.)
simple and more complex patterns

Skills:
Counting
Sorting
Compare/Contrast
Description
Fine Motor Skill of Lacing (using laces or pipe cleaners)

My children love lacing beads onto laces. I have some animal/transportation beads in my crafting supplies that I used when making busy book pages and the children beg to do the activity.

I was ordering some more art supplies and some bright foam beads caught my eye. I thought the children would enjoy some new beads so I tossed them in my order. The children loved them. I enjoyed lacing them as well. I also realized how useful they can be as a math manipulative or when teaching early language concepts in therapy (they are a choking hazard though - closely supervise or only use with older children).

Teaching Children Their Own Personal Information Through Song

When Michael was little (as in still eating in a high chair little) I modified a nursery rhyme to teach him his full name. As he's gotten older I've added verses to teach him his address and his phone number. Song is a fun way to teach and learn and the children will beg to hear the song again and again because it is about them.

The names, addresses, and phone numbers used here are completely made up. Insert your own child's information (or student's information) as appropriate.

I use the tune for "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" (click on the link and hit play sample if you don't know the tune).

The original lyrics are:

First Verse:
Oh, do you know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man,
Oh, do you know the muffin man,
That lives on Drury Lane?

Second Verse:
Oh, yes, I know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man,
Oh, yes, I know the muffin man,
That lives on Drury Lane.

Here's the modified version for teaching a child's full name:

First Verse:
Oh, do you know Brian's full name,
Full name, full name,
Oh, do you know Brian's full name,
It's Brian Lewis Brown.

Second Verse:
Oh, yes, I know Brian's full name,
Full name, full name,
Oh, yes I know Brian's full name,
It's Brian Lewis Brown.

Alternately, you could sing:
Oh, do you know Brian's family name,
family name, family name,
Oh, do you know Brian's family name,
It's Brian Lewis Brown. (etc.)

This is how I sing the song when teaching their street address:

First Verse:
Oh, do you know Brian's street address,
Street address, street address,
Oh, do you know Brian's street address,
It's 44 Westing Estate.

Second Verse:
Oh, yes, I know Brian's street address,
Street address, street address,
Oh, yes I know Brian's street address,
It's 44 Westing Estate.

Alternately, you could sing:
Oh, do you know Brian's house number,
House number, house number,
Oh, do you know Brian's house number,
It's 44 Westing Estate. (etc.)

This is how I sing the song when teaching their phone number:

First Verse:
Oh, do you know Brian's phone number,
Phone number, phone number,
Oh, do you know Brian's phone number,
It's 123-456-7899.

Second Verse:
Oh, yes, I know Brian's phone number,
Phone number, phone number,
Oh, yes I know Brian's phone number,
It's 123-456-7899.

You could choose to leave out the area code if you live in an area where only one area code is commonly used. I also slow the tune down significantly when singing the 10 digits of the phone number to make sure each number is distinct.

Then put it all together.

And then you can string all three parts together for a "Song About You" - a six verse song that teaches your child's (or student's) full name, street address, and phone number. (You could also add two verses about city and state and another two about zip code if you are so inclined.)

Feel free to click on the image at the top of the post to open a one page printable to save to your computer. If you're using the song in therapy you might want to send home an example of what you're doing for parents to practice.

Speech Steps from Isolation to Spontaneous Sentences

This is a description of the variety of ways you can use the exact same set of stimuli to work with children who are at vastly different levels of proficiency with a target sound. Or, alternately, a description of the set of incremental steps you can go through using the same set of stimuli to take a child from producing a sound in isolation to using that same sound in spontaneous sentences. For the purposes of this discussion, I am using the /s/ phoneme as an example, but the same process can be used with any phoneme.

At the beginning of the spectrum, you have a child who is stimulable for the target sound, but is having difficulty at the CV, VC, or CVC single-syllable word level. At the end of the spectrum, you have a child who is ready to work on carryover to conversational speech with the sound. Let's look at the steps you can take with the same set of stimuli to vary difficulty to meet the child's needs.

I attempted to get this information down in paragraph form, but it was too wordy. An illustrated flowchart seemed to work better, so here it is. You might consider printing this and attaching it to a copy of one or two of my free articulation card sets and sending it home as homework for the summer with students.

Speech Steps from Isolation to Spontaneous Sentences

Maintaining Home Therapy Momentum

Ava's speech has improved so much in the past 15 months. A little over a year ago my 24 month old daughter had only a couple of "words", a handful of phonemes in her repertoire, and was beginning to give up trying - turning instead to gesture. I spent a huge amount of time worrying about her speech, scheduling evaluations, setting up private therapy and early intervention, and working with her at home. I designed my own therapy materials. I worked with her daily. I monitored every tiny bit of measurable progress. Not an hour went by without me being engaged with her speech delay on some level.

Almost 15 months later, Ava's made so much progress. She's gone from a place with no words to a place with sentences and conversation. She's moved from a speech sound inventory where it was easier to list the few sounds she did have to a place where it is now easier to list the ones she's missing. She moved from early intervention and IFSPs to school age services and IEPs. I no longer worry about her speech on an hourly basis. It no longer is the major focus of my life.

All of that is wonderful and it is difficult to express the profound sense of relief that comes from letting go of the level of worry I had at the beginning. The progress has, however, had a direct impact on my sense of urgency and our home therapy momentum. When I was profoundly concerned, it was easy to remember to sneak in speech practice daily - sometimes multiple times daily. Now I'll find that a few days have slipped by without a structured therapy session.

Spring has contributed to the problem. Our habitual therapy session was after dinner and before the play, bath, and bedtime stories that make up our bedtime routine. The beautiful weather and late sunlight have drawn our family outdoors for evening picnics and play in local parks and I won't realize until after I've put them to bed that speech got lost in all the business and enjoyment of the season.

I need to refocus a little and find a new routine that works. I have been trying to shift our therapy sessions to the mornings when I know we'll be out in the evening. I make an effort each night to plan the activity, time, and therapy focus for the next day. Time slips away so easily and her speech will not continue to improve without intervention. And so I need to find a new sense of momentum even though the urgency isn't as intense and the weather is beautiful.


________________________


Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Mini-Bingo Strips - Phonics or Speech Game

The reading program we're using (which I will review soon - promise) wants us to practice reading words that begin with the letters d, h, p, b, r, and s followed by i or a and ending with t, p, n, m, g and d. They provided a flip book format for that practice, but I wanted to do something a bit more creative.

First I made the word wheel which is fun, but only gets you so far. I wanted to make a game. I decided to make a kind of mini-bingo game.

I made strips with five of the six beginning letters on them. Then I made several sets of all twelve possible word endings. Finally I took colored dots to match the six colors of the beginning letters and stuck them on a die.

I roll the die and call the color. Anyone who has that color on their strip gets to pull word endings out of the cup (and practice reading the word that is made when the beginning letter is combined with the word ending) until they find one that makes a real word. We repeat the process until someone has made words for all of their letters and calls "Bingo". They win the game and then we get to start over. The game is simple and the strips are colorful. The game goes quickly enough so you can play several times and everyone gets a chance to win.

It seems like you could use this same game for speech practice by putting initial or final consonants you want to target on the strips and making your word endings (or beginnings) simple sounds that the child can produce easily. You'd just need to be working with children who are at least early readers. I'm sure their teachers would love the bonus phonics practice. If I wanted to use this game with Michael for speech, I'd make the beginning sounds /f/ and /s/ on different colored rectangles. I could use the same word endings I've already printed. Even if the words turned out to be mostly nonsense words it would still be great speech (and phonics) practice.

Now I've Done It (Bad Speech Habit Acquired - Help!)

Ava has been doing so well with her blends. She went from simply eliminating the second consonant in an s-blend to being able to include both consonants almost every time. I was excited about that achievement and simply failed to notice that she began inserting a pretty prominent schwa to the end of the /s/. So, instead of saying "snow" or even "ssssssno," she's saying "suh no". (or "suh pin", "suh tep", etc...) I think it happened gradually and I just didn't catch it early. I really should have caught it, but I'm just not perfect. In fact, I'm only aware of it now because one of her speech teachers pointed it out to me. I was pretty embarassed. Now adding that schwa seems firmly ingrained in her motor planning for s-blends and I can't figure out how to get rid of it. Her therapist recommended shortening the /s/ and overemphasizing the second consonant when modeling, but that isn't helping.

Does anyone have any strategies they use under such circumstances?


_____________________

One year ago I reflected on my jealousy when watching other babies smile and the possible impact of oral apraxia on the infancies of my children.

Articulation Rating Scale - Picture Rubric

We are working on Michael's interdental /s/ production. His standard production is a visually distracting interdental production that sounds like a clear /s/. When asked to keep his tongue behind his teeth, he gets a lot of lateral air escape making the auditory result more like a /s/-/sh/ hybrid. When he is coached, is paying attention, and is not fatigued, he can occasionally produce a crystal clear /s/ with appropriate placement.

His production varies widely from repetition to repetition and I was having trouble giving him appropriate, useful feedback quickly and efficiently without disrupting the flow of practice and slowing us down significantly. Then I saw a post on The Learning Curve about an articulation rating scale she had made. I thought making something similar scaled down to the toddler/preschool level might help me give Michael more consistent feedback.

So I made this:

When we sat down to use it the first time I explained that this was going to help us with our /s/. I reminded him that making the /s/ with his tongue sticking out was incorrect and told him that if I saw him make it that way I'd point to the stop sign. If he made a beautiful clear /s/ sound (I demonstrated) I'd point to the smiley face with the fireworks. If the /s/ looked good, but sounded mushy (again, I demonstrated) I would point somewhere in between. He grasped the concept immediately and loved using the chart as a feedback tool. I was able to give him feedback instantly and quickly without needing a lot of words to explain what needed to be corrected. Every time I pointed to something below a 5 he was able to self-correct with no other cues needed (Until he got fatigued. At that point I just couldn't get any more clear /s/ sounds.).

The chart could be used in a similar fashion with any phoneme production that needs to be shaped. You could also use the rubric for just about anything with small children because the stop-sign to smiley face progression makes sense to little ones. You could use it to show children how well they cleaned up a room. You could use it to show a child how close his written "A" matched the one he was trying to copy. It's a really flexible visual scale.

As a funny side story, this is version 2 of the rubric. The first one I made had this:

instead of the stop sign. I was pretty pleased with my rubric and was showing it off to my husband. He thought the sobbing face was a bit harsh for little ones and suggested switching it for something else. I granted him the point and switched to the stop sign. Sometimes a second opinion is useful.

Any other ideas for how to use the scale?

Organizing Speech Articulation Practice

This is hardly rocket science in the speech therapy world, but it was time for something new around here so we're switching to speech binders instead of using the articulation cards in deck style.

Name is on the front. I just printed out the pages of cards leaving off the backs and punched holes in them. Michael is working on /f/ and /s/ so his binder has those two sections. As soon as the children have adjusted to the new format I'll add a section for the s-blends to Michael's folder.

I plan to pretty much drill the children. I'll cross off any of the cards I don't want them using. Michael can do all of the cards, but for Ava I'll cross off any word that includes non-targeted phonemes that aren't in her inventory yet (so, any word with /k/, /g/, /ch/, etc.). Every time they say the word the requested number of times (3 times in a row) or in the requested way (in a phrase/short sentence), they get to mark the card. Marking options include a stamp, sticker, check mark or dot with a crayon or paint marker, dot paint, etc. If you switch the marking options each time interest should be higher and they'll collect a wide variety of "marks" on each card. They have a visual representation of all the work they've put in over time.

The other advantage to the binder format is documentation and notes. I can jot down the date on the blank opposite page and take notes about % accuracy, the level I'm working on that day (imitation, single words, x3, phrases, etc.), and any words that were particularly difficult. Over time, I can analyze those difficult words for patterns. I might notice that Michael has an easy time with /s/ on all the front vowels, but struggles with /s/ paired with back vowels and adjust therapy accordingly. This is an advantage over randomly shuffling a card deck. When we practice that way it is more difficult to document properly.

In a school setting using this format for therapy would make it easier to work with children on different phonemes during a single session. Do one row with child A from their folder and then switch and do one row with child B from their folder...

If you're working in a setting where you can send the binder home to a parent, you can make a homework section of words that are ready for parent led practice. Having a parent work in this way will let you see visually exactly how much practice happened at home because you can look for the marks on the cards. Parents could also easily jot down questions or comments for you to read and respond to on the blank backs of the pages in their section. You could check for parent comments in just a couple of minutes at the beginning or end of each session. You could possibly also use this format if you had a teacher, teacher aide, volunteer, or even super responsible classmate who could do speech work with your student in the classroom for 5 min/day.

Speech Card Set Activity: What's Hiding?

Game: What's hiding?
Description: Set 3-5 cards out in front of children. Have children identify each word. Hide one card. Have children identify the missing card. Repeat.
Object: Child who has the most cards at the end of the game wins.
Materials: One piece of paper and a free card set.
Setup: Fold paper into thirds. Unfold and set upright to form barrier between yourself and children. Lay 3-5 cards in front of the barrier facing the children.

Directions:

1. Tell children (for example), "Fan, food, and feet came out to play. Say, "Hi fan!" Say, "Hi food!" Say, "Hi feet!"
2. Wait for children to produce target words in imitation, threes, phrases, sentences, etc.
3. Say, "Now, one of the cards is going to hide from you. Close your eyes and don't open them until I tell you to. (Hide one of the cards behind the barrier.) Now open your eyes and tell me who went hiding."
4. The child who identifies the missing card first and pronounces it correctly gets to keep the card.
5. Set out a new group of cards and repeat. The child with the most cards at the end of the game wins.

Card Set Activity: Speech Caterpillar

This idea is super simple. I cut out 8 circles that were 3.75 inches in diameter each. That made the circles just big enough for my free printable speech cards. Then add a slightly bigger head with antennae, eyes and a mouth and laminate (or stick together with contact paper) and you have a speech caterpillar. It is inexpensive, easy to make, travels well, and makes artic drill a little more interesting.

You place a card on each body segment and then one prize per child (treat, sticker, token, etc.) on the last segment. They get the prize when they reach the last word on the caterpillar. You can easily modify difficulty. One child might simply imitate the word while another might say it three times in a row. A third child might use it with a carrier phrase and a fourth child might be using it in a sentence.

It rolls up easily for storage and or transport. You could keep it in a pencil box along with several card decks. You could also make a train, snake, racetrack, chain of boats, etc and keep them rolled up in the same box and then the children can choose the one they want to use that day.

If you liked this activity idea you might also be interested in top-bottom puzzles, or this activity and game list.

Rory's Story Cubes - Action Version: A Mini-Review

Last year I did a review of Rory's Story Cubes. It is a simple, yet amazing game that consists of nine dice. Each die has a different picture on each side. Most of the pictures are of things (lock, phone, flower, castle, apple, etc.). You take turns rolling the die and making up a story. I think the game is wonderful. It is small and compact. It is great for either speech or language therapy. It is very reasonably priced on Amazon.

I recently discovered that there is a new Rory's Story Cubes game - the Action Edition. The game is still nine dice. There is still a different picture on each side of each die. This time the pictures depict actions (build, play, kick, jump, read, dig, etc.). Combine these die with the original set and your stories become even more complex. Again, it is a small, compact, reasonably priced therapy tool to address either speech or language goals.

Trying for blends (/sn/, /bl/, and /pl/)

We've starting working on blends with Ava. She's had a lot of success with both /s/ and /l/. Typically, /s/, /l/, and all blends would not be sounds you'd choose to work on with a two year old child. However, Ava struggles to make herself understood. She has motor planning problems with speech and for whatever reason, /s/ and /l/ are easier for her than other sounds that would typically emerge earlier (like /k/). So, if we take the time to improve the sounds that are more stimulable, we'll improve her intelligibility sooner. Sure enough, /l/ is definitely popping into her conversational speech and it sounds great. To a lesser extent (mostly in initial position), /s/ is popping in as well. So, we decided to try for some /s/ and /l/ blends.

Her /sn/ words are: snow, snap, sneeze, snip, snail, snore, and sniff. She is pretty good with all those final consonants (notice, we aren't doing snake).

We are cueing her on multiple levels. First, we are using semantic/visual cues. For "snow" we use the visual cue for /s/ followed by shaking our head "no". For "snap" we use the visual cue for /s/ followed by tilting our hands on our head to visually cue "nap." For "snail" we use the visual cue for /s/ followed by pretending to hammer a "nail." And so on...

This works well when we keep the /s/ sound completely separate from the second part of the word. As soon as you ask her to imitate the blended word, she loses the second consonant. Snow becomes so. Snap becomes sap. Snail becomes sail.

Using an auditory prolongation cue was also unsuccessful. Ava, say "sssssssssno." Her response was simply "so".

Visual cues were unsuccessful. Semantic cues were unsuccessful. Auditory cues were unsuccessful. I finally tried incorporating some tactile cues. I happened to do this with feet because Ava thought it was funny, but you could do this with hands, fingers, or knees as well. I first grabbed one foot and giving it a light squeeze I asked her to say, "Hi sssssss." She repeated, Hi sssssss." Then I grabbed the other foot and gave it a squeeze and asked her to say, "Hi no." Again, she repeated, "Hi no." Then I squeezed each foot in succession as I said, "Now say ssssssss-no." She had the tactile cues of me squeezing each foot in succession with each part of the blend. She had the auditory cues of the prolonged /s/ sound followed by an emphasis on the /n/. She was also watching my face and mouth at the same time. This time she was successful.

We continued to practice that way about three additional practice sessions and then I was able to fade the cues. First I was able to stop using the tactile cues. Then I was able to minimize the prolonged /s/ sound. Now I can simply show her the card and give her an auditory cue with a just the slightest prolongation of the /s/ and a slight emphasis on the /n/ and get a /sn/ blend production from her. It's like the motor planning finally kicked in and now she has it. We still have a lot of work to do. It is inconsistent and we get no carryover to other s-blends (/st/, /sp/, etc.). At least the variety of cues and prompts managed to help her experience some success with the specific blends we are working on right now.

I used the same strategies for /pl/ and /bl/. Our /pl/ words are plum, play, please and plane. Our /bl/ words are blue, blood and blow.

Quick summary of cues/prompt types you may find useful:

• auditory (slight separation of blend consonants, prolongation of first consonant in blend, emphasis on the second consonant of the consonant blend, clapping or snapping for each section of the blend word, etc.)
• visual (use gestural prompts for specific phonemes, use gestures to represent semantic cues, have child watch your mouth)
• semantic - assign meaning to the second part of a blend word (the "no" of snow, the "nap" of snap, etc.)
• tactile cues - tap or squeeze a hand, finger, or foot to emphasize each part of the blend word you are trying to produce in sequence

Our Last IFSP Meeting

Our last IFSP meeting was held yesterday morning. To be honest, it was mostly a formality. It was due by January 29th and therefore we had to have a meeting even though Ava will age out of the program in five weeks.

I filled out a few forms about the progress Ava's made and the concerns I still have ahead of time. Our case manager emailed them to me so that we could have a head start at the meeting. We went over the forms and she took our new insurance information (some insurance will reimburse Missouri First Steps for part of their expenses). We agreed to leave Ava's services the same for the next 5 weeks.

I worried and worried and planned and planned before the first IFSP meeting to ultimately feel relieved that it seemed so easy. Then I repeated that experience before the second IFSP meeting. This one just felt a little token.

My focus is moving forward to the transition from early intervention services to school age services. We've qualified and our first IEP has been written. Now we just wait for Ava's birthday to switch. We'll appreciate the last few sessions of OT in our home and our last few sessions of speech with our wonderful early intervention therapists. Then we'll start all over again.

Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards: Game and Activity Ideas

Speech Therapy Card Activities and Games

Here are some suggestions for fun activities to do and games to play using the free speech therapy articulation card sets (or any other card sets you might be using with young children). They're great for speech therapy, but could also be used for flash cards while studying for a grade school test.

1. Play a matching game. This requires two copies of a set.
2. Play go fish card game. This requires two copies of a set.
3. Play a fishing game. Put a paper clip or a couple of heavy duty staples in each card. Make a fishing pole with a magnet on the end of the line. Turn the cards upside down and have the child "fish" for the cards. Alternately, you could leave the cards face up and ask them to fish out the card you prompt them to find (see levels of prompting).
4. Play bowling. Put cards in clothespins you can stand on end. Line up 3-5 clothespins in a row and have the child say the words pictured on the cards before attempting to "bowl" them down with a small ball.
5. Build a train. Make a train engine and caboose and laminate for durability. Line the cards up in between to build a train. Put a small prize on the caboose like a sticker or cheerio. The child receives the prize when they finish saying all the words pictured on the train.
6. Put cards in a mailbox. Cut a slit in the top of a box or other container to make a "mailbox". Let the children "mail" the cards after completing each card.
7. Play top-bottom puzzles. Cut each card in a card set in half and have the children match the top of each picture to the bottom saying the words as they complete the mini puzzles.
8. Play speech uno. This requires four copies of a set. Take foil stars in four colors (red, green, blue, gold) and put a star of each color on the four cards for each word. (You could also use smiley stickers in four colors, or simply color dots with crayons or markers.) Then play a card game uno-style matching either color or word. The child says the word each time a card is played.
9. Play flashlight hunt. Tape the cards on the wall and turn off the lights. The adult or child shines a flashlight on each card in turn saying the word when the card is illuminated.
10. Play stepping stones. This is recommended only if your cards have been laminated and you have a large space to work in. Place the cards on the floor making a trail. Space the cards so the child has to take a large step to move from one to the next. The child can only move to the next "stone" once they've said the word on their current card.

Note: Keep in mind, you're making a trade off. The more game-like the activity is, the fewer repetitions the child will produce. Particularly with a child who has motor-planning problems, you want to get in as many repetitions as possible in each session. Strike a balance between fun and productivity and try to keep things moving quickly with the focus on many productions no matter which activity you are using. One way to increase the number of productions during an activity is to require multiple repetitions instead of a single production if the child is capable of doing so accurately. So ask for chains of two, three, four, or even five if you can get them. (ex. "pay, pay, pay)

Does anyone have any other games or activities they play while using articulation cards? I'd love to add more ideas to this list. Please leave suggestions in the comments.

Initial B Minimal Pairs: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Description

This articulation card set is designed to be an extension of my single-syllable cards sets. The words are all still CV or CVC in syllable shape and include no blends or vocalic /r/ sounds. This is a comprehensive set of minimal pairs focusing on contrasting the initial /b/ sound with each of the other early emerging sounds. The initial /b/ is contrasted three times with each of the other early emerging sounds (p, t, d, m, n, h) using a different vowel each time. The target audience for these cards are children with severe speech delays who need exposure to a minimal pair technique to emphasize that they need to differentiate production of two different words. (Scroll down to preview set.)

Key Features

• This set includes 18 therapy cards pairs with the initial /b/ word on the left and the matching minimal pair on the right. The /b/ words are paired three times with /p, t, d, m, n, and h/ using a different vowel sound each time.
• The words are CV or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words feature early emerging consonants.
• The words are simple and are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Card Sets

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Research Article: Toddlers Don't Modify Speech Production Based on the Auditory Feedback of Their Own Voice

Research of the Week

I read this research summary and thought the findings were interesting. I got my hands on the original journal article and thought the research methodology and conclusions were well thought out and seemed sound.

Essentially, research shows that adults and preschoolers listen to the sound of their own voice and modify their speech based upon what they hear. If you put headphones on an adult or 4 year old child and feed a slightly modified version of their own voice back to them, the speech they produce changes as they try to "fix" the productions they are hearing.

If you do the same thing to a two year old, they do not modify their productions. Toddlers do not appear to monitor the sound of their own voices and adjust their speech production according to the auditory feedback provided by their own voice.

This has rather significant implications for therapy with toddlers. If you're expecting them to hear the difference between their own correct and incorrect productions that probably won't happen without some sort of additional feedback.

This study was done with typically developing two and four year old children and showed that adjusting speech due to auditory feedback develops between the ages of two and four. I wonder if you took a group of speech delayed children and conducted the same experiment, would you find that it takes even longer for self-monitoring to develop in these children? And further, would you find a difference between articulation, phonological, and apraxic children?