Speech-Language Pathology Topics: Vowels

What are vowels and why are they important to speech?

A vowel is a sound produced with a relatively open vocal tract. In contrast, consonant sounds are produced by constricting or interrupting the air flow at some point during production. You can maintain a vowel until you run out of breath. For example, take a deep breath and say "eeeeee" for as long as you can. You can keep making that sound until you get bored or until you run out of breath. However, when you make the "p" sound, you can't draw it out. You simply make the sound once and then have to move on. Vowels are essential to speech because they are the core of every syllable we make. Every word has at least one vowel. When vowels are produced incorrectly, that makes speech very difficult to understand.

What are the characteristics of vowels?

What makes an "e" different than an "o"? The vowel sounds are different from each other because you change the shape of your mouth when making each vowel. There are two main ways you change the shape of your mouth. Some vowels are made in the front of the mouth, some in the center, and some in the back. At the same time, some are made with the mouth relatively closed while some are made with the mouth relatively open. Speech-Language Pathologists use a vowel chart to keep track of the vowels and their characteristics.

If you say "beeeeeeee" and then say "baaaaaaaa" (as in "bat") you'll notice that you open your mouth more to make the "baaaaaa" sound. Next, say "beeeeeee" again and then "baaaaaaa" (as in "body"). This time you'll notice that the first sound is made in the front of the mouth while the second is made in the back.

What is the difference between a simple vowel and a diphthong?

A simple vowel is a sound made by keeping your mouth in a single position. When making a diphthong vowel, your mouth changes position. So, when making the /aI/ sound as in "bike" your mouth starts in a very open position and then closes for the second half of the diphthong. This second chart shows the five common diphthongs in American English and how they move in the mouth.

Why are vowel characteristics important to understand when planning therapy for Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

First of all, understanding the characteristics of vowels can help you understand why some vowels are harder than others for your child. Diphthongs are going to be harder than simple vowels because they require more complicated motor planning. If your child has an easier time with front sounds, they'll probably have an easier time with front vowels. If you are trying to help your child learn a back consonant (like /k/) it should be easier for them to make when paired with a back vowel because that makes the motor planning simpler.

Remember that Childhood Apraxia of Speech is fundamentally a problem with the motor planning of speech. The child has to form a motor plan to get from one sound to the next in a word including the consonants and the vowels. So if your child is working on /b/ words, the motor planning will be different if they are saying "bee" instead of "boo" because the vowels are produced in completely different ways. When you set up practice word lists, you want to pair /b/ with as many different vowels as possible to maximize generalization.

You might also be interested in the following articles:

Voicing Pairs

Random Example of the Complexity of Motor Planning

Apraxia Therapy Materials: Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book

Book Review: Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book

This is a review of the Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book by Sharon Webber, M.S. and M. Thomas Webber, Jr. The book is designed to be a resource for Speech-Language Pathologists that offers a kind of dictionary of words, phrases, and sentences that can be used in therapy for the most common consonant sounds in the English language.

Target Audience

This resource is useful for Speech-Language Pathologists working with all ages. If you need to target specific speech sounds, this book is a wonderful resource for you. The pictures are essentials with young children and the word, phrase, and sentences lists work well with older children and even adults.

How to use the Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book

You need to know what sounds you are going to target and in what context (Do you need to target the sound at the beginning, middle, or ends of words? Do you need to target the sound in words, phrases, or sentences?) Once you know what you need to work on, you simply turn to the appropriate section of the book, copy the page, and use it in therapy.

What is inside the Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book?

You can view sample pages of the book.

The book has word lists, pictures, phrase lists, and sentences in initial, medial, and final positions for the following sounds: R, S, L, (Initial R, S, and L Blends), Z, SH, CH, TH (voiced and voiceless), F, V, K, G, P, B, T, D, J, H, M, N, and Y. It also includes an articulation drill record form, progress chart, homework helper note, and awards. There are a total of 6,420 target words, 3,120 phrases, 3,120 sentences, and 1,710 pictures.

Therapy Ideas using the Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book

• You can practice the words in drill format by simply going through one at a time. Each picture card has boxes at the bottom for you to keep track of correct and incorrect productions if you like.)
• You can make two copies of each page, cut the individual pictures out, and play a matching game or Go Fish style game with the pictures.
• You can cut out the pictures and glue them onto a piece of cardboard in a kind of snake and make a game board. Have the children spin a spinner or roll dice and say the words they land on the number of times that they rolled in order to move forward.
• You can cut out the pictures, glue them onto fish cut out of construction paper and then laminate the fish. Glue a small magnet on the back of each fish. Then make a fishing pole with a magnet on the end of the line and go fishing for the words.
• If you have a small bowling pin game, you can glue or tape words to each pin. The child knocks down the pins and then has to say each word before they can set each pin back up for the new try.
• Form a long train from the pictures. You can put an engine at the front and a caboose at the end. Put a small prize on the caboose like a sticker or piece of candy. When the child finishes saying each word that forms the train, they get the prize on the caboose.
• You can let the children color the black and white line drawing pictures.

Pros and Cons of the Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book

Pros: This book can be very useful. It gives you some words to use in therapy for all common consonants in all three word positions. If you use the words and pictures creatively, they can make articulation therapy fun and productive. It is also great to have phrases and sentences included as well.

Cons: Young children often need practice with simple, one-syllable words. Often, there are only a small number of simple one-syllable words included for each phoneme in each position. You may not find a lot of exactly what you are looking for. Also, some of the pictures are hard to interpret for little ones or may not be the best illustration for the word.

Bottom Line

If you are looking for a single resource that will have at least a few stimulus words for almost any sound in any context, this is a hard book to beat.

You might also be interested in the following articles:

Apraxia Therapy Materials: The Big Book of Exclamations

Apraxia Therapy Materials: Talking Carl iPhone / iPad App

Apraxia Therapy Materials: Doodle Buddy iPhone / iPad App

Home Therapy Plan - Rough Draft

Here's my first attempt (this time around) at structuring therapy sessions here at home.

1. I made Ava a speech bag to store her speech materials in. Since we're really fancy around here, her bag is a ziploc decorated with stickers.
   
2. I printed some very nice articulation cards I found at mommyspeechtherapy.com. I cut those out, paperclipped the different targets, and stuck them in the bag. Note: I printed these on cardstock at high quality to make the cards more durable and prettier.
   
3. I found a site with some free printable reward charts and printed a butterfly one for Ava.
   

Now, my original idea was that Ava and I would sit down together and my charisma and enthusiasm would result in her wanting to practice speech sounds with me in exchange for the pleasure of putting stickers on the chart after each set of cards.

Hahahahahaha.

After that complete failure, I offered her two froot loops of her choice after doing each stack of cards. ("Two pink mommy." Hmm... what will we do when we run out of red froot loops?) That worked much better. We ended up with only one sticker on the chart. So I stuck the chart up on the wall and now we'll put a sticker up on the chart after each session.

My goal is to try to get in four or five 10-20 minute sessions per week. We'll see how it goes.