Michael's Speech Therapy

A couple of weeks ago I asked you all for some input about "age appropriate" errors and whether, in your experience, they resolve on their own for a child with a history of speech problems that needed intervention. After reading all the comments and emails I received from you I decided to relax a little with Michael. His only remaining errors are with /th/ (and some slight gliding of /r/ and /l/ which doesn't concern me at this point).

Before I asked you all for your input I was planning a major push on /th/. I was going to work with Michael on /th/ for 45 minutes x2 a week in the waiting area while Ava was getting her Tu/Th speech therapy. I've decided he doesn't need that much. In fact, pushing too hard might be counter-productive.

Instead, I need to work from his strengths. Michael is an early reader. Letters have always spoken to him. He learned his alphabet really early. He learned letter-sound correspondences early. He was just interested. Reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom taught him the alphabet. Playing with the AlphaBlocks website taught him the correspondences. Bob books and the Usborne Early Readers taught him to decode CVC words. He likes it. So, I'm going to sneak in raising his awareness of the difference between /f/ and /th/ through reading. (I'm also going to do a little traditional artic work on it, but I'll get to that in a minute.) The reading work I've done with Michael so far hasn't dealt with any of the digraphs (th, ch, sh, etc.) so he hasn't had the opportunity to realize that "thumb", for example, is actually not spelled "fum." I'm going to do activities that focus on reading words with "th" and "f" and see if that does the trick.

I also came across the concept of 5-minute speech therapy at some point. I don't remember exactly where, why, or when, but it's been floating around in the back of my head ever since. I find the concept intriguing. It would allow an amazing amount of personalization in a school setting. Essentially, instead of grouping students into twice a week 30-60 minute sessions, you see all of the speech children on your caseload for 5-7 minute individual sessions heavily focused on drill in the hallway. Just pull them from their room for a few minutes several times a week and do heavy drill on their specific target phonemes at exactly the level they need to be working at. I find this idea tempting for straight artic kids. Done right, they could get as much practice in 5-7 individual minutes as they do in a 30-45 minute group session. They lose much less classroom time. Your schedule is more flexible and make-ups would be much easier to squeeze in. But I digress...

I thought I'd use that concept with Michael. Instead of working /th/ for 45 minutes twice a week I'll do an intense 5-7 minute drill twice a week. Then we'll move on to some other activity. Once a week, we do his weekly preschool homework. The other day we'll do some reading taking the time to highlight every example of "th" that occurs in that reading.

And that's my current speech plan for Michael. In large part, that's due to the input I got from those of you saying that it would probably be fine to relax a little about the /th/. So, thanks!

The Weekly Review: Week 76

SLP Resource of the Week

Rebecca at Adventures in Speech Pathology has put together a great beginning of the school year post on 10 Things You Need for Articulation Therapy. The post lists the 10 things along with links to free resources she found browsing the web to give you materials in the 10 areas. I particularly liked the beautiful, accurate informational handout on the hierarchy of speech therapy Rebecca linked to in #3 from Mommy Speech Therapy.

Ava this Week

As we were walking to school one day this week, we came across some art that had obviously been traced into the setting concrete by some adolescent males. Ava stopped, entranced by the foot long line drawing of male genitalia before her. Then she excitedly shouted, "Look Mama! Someone drew scissors on the sidewalk!" I sure was grateful she interpreted that picture as scissors especially given that she decided to shout her observations to everyone walking by on the street.

Weekly Michael

Michael is a conservative soul who tends to learn well from his mistakes - sometimes too well. He was trying to keep up with his running sister one day on the way to school and fell, scraping the palms of his hands. I helped him up and comforted him. The next day, as he could tell Ava was gearing up for another spontaneous run, he cautioned the family, "Now, we can't run anymore on sidewalks because we can fall and scrape our hands." I haven't been able to persuade him to run again. He'll discontentedly watch Ava and I run ahead, but refuses to break out of his conservative, safe pace even as the distance between us lengthens. I don't know how to encourage/reassure him. I worry about that boy sometimes.

Weekly Weight Loss

This week I'm down 1.6. Taking last week's bump up into consideration, that's an average weight loss of a little less than half a pound over the past two weeks. Given that we had out of town guests for an extended weekend and a couple of extravagant meals here and there I'll consider this a win. It's nice to be back on track though.

I've also started walking the kids to school in the morning weather permitting. I spend 30-35 minutes (round-trip) walking and so that adds some consistent activity to my routine. We usually have a great time. We examine rocks and flowering vines. We talk about the dewdrops shining in the sunlight. We say hello to the construction workers setting up for their day's work patching the road. We discuss sparing the lives of the bugs on the sidewalk rather than squishing them. We discuss and practice staying aware of the traffic around us and safe street crossing procedures. All in all, it's much better family time than driving.

This Week's Special Event

I'm beginning to have senior moments. (And I'm not all that "senior" as my 40th birthday is still well on the horizon.) I typed out this section heading with something in particular in mind and then promptly forgot what I was intending to write about. Let me just say - that is darned irritating. Oh well, sorry about that. :-)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Thank You Volunteers (A Sneak Preview Thank You)

I wanted to sincerely thank everyone who commented or emailed me offering to help proofread my new book. I got far more offers than I needed. I've already contacted the people who sent in the first few offers and I don't need any more volunteers for now.

Here's a sneak preview of just a few of the 53 reproducible /s/ resources you'll find in the book.

Once I get some feedback, I'll make any corrections necessary and make the book available. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated.

Review: Articulation Scenes by Smarty Ears - iPad App

Articulation Scenes iPad App by Smarty Ears: A Review

An evaluation copy of this app was provided to me for free. I was not otherwise compensated for this review.

Detailed Description

Smarty Ears is offering their Articulation Scenes app for $34.99 at the app store. This app allows you to create profiles for multiple children. When you hit "Play" you choose the name of the student you are working with and then the phoneme (p, m, h, w, n, b, d, y, t, k, g, ng, f, ch, j, l, r, v, s, z, sh, and th). Once you identify the phoneme you wish to target you can choose a scene to work with. The scene is a picture filled with items that feature that phoneme. M, N, B, D, T, K, G, F, CH, V, Z, SH, and TH(voiced and voiceless combined) all have Initial, Medial, and Final scenes available. P has I, M, and two F scenes. H and Y have only an initial scene. NG has M and two F scenes. L has I, M, F, and an L-Blends scene. S has I, M, F, SK, SP, and ST. R has M, F, Pre-Vocalic R, and separate scenes for 6 of the vocalic R sounds.

Once you've chosen a scene, you can choose one of four activities to do with that scene: Find the Hidden Items, Tap and Say It, The Movie Theater, and The Production Room. If your iPad is connected to a wireless printer, there is also a simple homework document associated with each scene that features the target word pictures from that scene.

The Find the Hidden Items game simply lists the target words across the bottom of the page. The child can tap on the word to have it read to them. Then they search for that item on the page and tap on it. Once they find it, that target word disappears from the bottom of the screen and is replaced by another until all the words are found. This activity has no data tracking mechanism. You'll have to track accuracy on your own on a separate piece of paper.

In the Tap and Say It activity tapping on one of the target items brings up a popup that shows a picture of the target word and produces a model. After the child says the word (or you can choose to record it with your iPad) you can choose missed it, almost, or got it for data tracking purposes. Then when you back out, you can go to that child's progress report and see a record of the activity and the percentages of correct/almost/incorrect for that activity. You might find it more useful to think of the "Missed It" category as omission, the "Almost" category as substitution/distortion (whichever applies to that particular student/phoneme, and "Correct" as correct. That data scheme would be more useful.

The Movie Theater activity shows the scene while reading a story that incorporates all the target words. As far as I can tell, this is simply a passive listening activity.

The final activity is The Production Room. In this activity, the child is prompted to make up their own story about the scene and record it, or to read a script of the pre-prepared story about that scene. Then they can listen to the recording of themselves telling a story about the scene. There is no data collection mechanism for this activity.

Pros, Cons, and Bottom Line

This app includes a lot of target phonemes with the pictures incorporated into scenes that provide context and facilitate sentence level productions and generalization and carryover. The scenes are attractive and children will particularly enjoy finding the hidden pictures. If a set of 72 scenes with over 1500 target picture words is worth $34.99 to you, then you've already made a decision.

Many of the target words are fairly complex in syllable structure, so this app might not be best suited for working with children with more severe delays. For example, the stimuli for initial /p/ are: pig, pie, plate, pear, parcel, pot, pen, pin, pearl, pencil, paper, purse, pizza, peace, paint, pole, purple, pink, paint, pants, and pliers. Only 7/21 are simple CV or CVC words. All the others contain vocalic-r, consonant blends, or are two-syllable. Also, within app data tracking is minimal so be prepared to track performance separately. In my opinion, these are the major disadvantages of this program.

Here's my bottom line. If you are working with straightforward artic students who do not need a lot of single-syllable, simple syllable shape stimuli and don't mind keeping your data separately, this app might be worth the price. The scenes are great for keeping interest and for facilitation of carryover and generalization. If you are working with children who need simpler stimuli, you are likely to be frustrated with the composition of the targets included in the scenes and you would probably be better off looking elsewhere for stimuli for therapy.

Wanted: Guinea Pig Proofreaders

I've finished the rough draft of a /s/ Card Decks and Resources downloadable, printable ebook. It is a significant expansion of some of the free resources I have made available on this website. The ebook gives you the ability to print as many copies as you'd like of card decks, minimal pairs cards, pivot phrase worksheets, homework sheets, story booklets, and games and activities.

The /s/ book contains:

• Initial /s/
• One-Syllable Picture Card Set (44 cards)
• Minimal Pair Contrasts (18 picture pairs)
• Pivot Phrase Worksheets (3)
• Homework Worksheets (Difficulty Levels 1-3)
• Story Booklets (2)
• Speech Game: Simple Speech Puzzles (15)
• Final /s/
• One-Syllable Picture Card Set (44 cards)
• Minimal Pair Contrasts (18 picture pairs)
• Pivot Phrase Worksheets (2)
• Homework Worksheets (Difficulty Levels 1-3)
• Story Booklets (2)
• Speech Game: Speech Dominos (28 Domino Set)
• Medial /s/
• Two-Syllable Picture Card Set (29 cards)
• Minimal Pair Contrasts (9 picture pairs)
• Pivot Phrase Worksheets (2)
• Homework Worksheets (Difficulty Levels 1-3)
• Story Booklet
• Speech Game: Speech Race (1 Racetrack Game Sheet)
• /s/-Scenes
• /s/-Scenes Picture Card Set (29 cards)
• Mixed /s/ Story Booklet
• Speech Activity: Speech Sort (1 worksheet)

The Initial and Final Card decks are sortable by phoneme, position, difficulty, vowel, and phonological process (velar fronting, final consonant deletion, stopping, and liquid gliding). As with all my free card sets, the target words were carefully chosen to be as simple as possible in syllable shape and to contain a wide variety of consonant and vowel sounds to increase coarticulation variety and facilitate generalization and carryover.

My (admittedly biased) opinion is that you cannot find a comparable set of /s/ therapy materials anywhere else. I need some help though. I was hoping to get 4 volunteers - two SLPs and two parents of children with articulation problems working on /s/ at home. I'd like to offer you a free copy of the book in exchange for proofreading and feedback. You'd need to be willing to print the book out (67 pages - printing in b&w draft mode is fine), proofread it carefully, and mail it back to me. Send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com if you are interested and we'll work out the details.

Thank you, in advance, for all of your help. I'm very excited about this book and I hope it can be useful for many of you!

Update:
I have enough volunteers for now. I'm going to start contacting people via email. Thank you guys for the great response. As soon as I get the edits back and any corrections made, I'll be able to make the eResource available. I'm hoping to get things up in a couple of weeks.

Touching Lives

One of the things I treasure the most about working on this blog is reading the comments, emails, and blog posts of people who find the information and resources here helpful. Well over a year ago, I wrote an article about using communication boards with minimally verbal children - why and how. I included some pictures of the boards we used with Ava when she was still non-verbal.

Recently I came across this blog post by a mother of another young Ava with a speech delay. She had found my article on communication boards. It helped her to understand why her SLP was recommending she make some. It addressed her fears that communication boards would undermine her daughter's progress learning to talk. And she made some absolutely beautiful communication boards for her daughter that put mine to shame. If you'd like to see some great examples of personalized, homemade communication boards follow her link.

When I first started this blog it was simply about articulating some of the intense feelings I was having accepting that Ava had a significant speech delay and about documenting our journey and her progress. Then, I wanted to share some of my expertise with the other mothers that had found their way to my blog. When I started to create my own materials for working with Ava I wanted to share those too. I wanted to help the parents, teachers, and SLPs of children with speech delays. It is special when I read the evidence that lets me know I'm making a difference.

Bunk Buddies

My parents are wonderful. Every weekend they take one of the children for a grandparent sleepover and bonding night. Occasionally, they take both children. They've been doing this since Michael was born, and so they had a crib at their house donated by a neighbor.

Michael outgrew the crib first. He would sleep in a little travel tent we got for trips that we keep at my parents house in between trips. Or, he could also choose to sleep in my old full-size bed in the room they now use as a guest bedroom.

Ava, until last night, was still sleeping in the crib. At 3 1/2 it was time for another solution and my mom and I have been brainstorming options for several weeks. We thought about pulling the crib mattress onto the floor and surrounding it with pillows as a makeshift "daybed", but we weren't really in love with the idea. We thought about buying a toddler bed since that would allow us to continue to use the crib mattress, but that seemed like a temporary solution that would have to be replaced with something new in another couple of years.

My mom found a bunk bed on craigslist that came with two twin size mattresses. My husband picked it up, brought it over to her house, disassembled the crib, and assembled the bunk beds. Meanwhile, my mom picked the kids up from school and took them to Wal-mart to choose their own sheet sets for the new bunk beds. She also mediated the discussion of who would get the top and who would get the bottom bunk.

Last night, my husband and I got this picture from her in an email.

Somehow, watching your children sleep (or seeing it in a picture) always raises the most intense feelings of love in a parent's heart. And watching them both sleep together, in their new beds with their new sheets is incredibly special. It'll be an amazing treat for them to be bunk buddies at their grandparents house. I hope it is something they remember fondly when they grow up. Kudos to my mom and my husband for all the work they put into getting this set up.

Hair

I've been having fun fixing Ava's hair for school. I bribe her to sit still with a little tv in the morning and we end up with a cute hair style that will last through nap and still look nice in the evening. It also keeps the hair back off her face.

She has very fine, thin hair though, and so finding hairstyles that will work has been challenging. Did you know there are entire blogs devoted to little girl hairstyles? I found one that has hairstyles that work for Ava and I've been doing a different one each day to try them out. I don't always get a picture, but here are a few we've tried since school started a couple of weeks ago.

_______________________


Welcome to September and enjoy your holiday weekend!

The Weekly Review: Week 75

SLP Preview of the Week

Stay tuned. Next week I'll be telling you all about a set of /s/ resources that I've been working on putting in printable ebook format. The rough draft is completely done except for a cover. I'll be asking for volunteer proofreaders and some other feedback next week.

Ava this Week

Ava is discovering movement. The other three members of her family are drawn towards somewhat sedentary pursuits. We like to read, play computer games, build with legos or other construction toys, sew, do art projects, etc. Lately, it is becoming apparent to me that Ava likes all of those things, but she is drawn towards active pursuits as well. She wants to kick a ball, bop a balloon, play ping pong (she can actually serve a ping pong ball - she's only 3), swing a bat, climb a climbing wall, run as fast as she can, and slide over and over. She loves the activity and the movement. I need to find a way to build more active activities into our schedule. It fights against my nature and inclination a little, but she's worth it. And the activity would be good for all of us anyway.

Weekly Michael

Michael, as a contrast to his sister, has completely fallen in addictive love with his first real computer game. His father installed a game called Minecraft on his computer. It is an open-ended building game that involves placing a wide variety of cubes into a 3-D environment. There are landscape blocks (grass, dirt, bricks, trees, glass, lava, snow, etc), industrial blocks (dynamite, levers, buttons, train tracks, etc), and animals and people. He loves it. It is the last thing he thinks about before bed and the first thing he thinks about in the morning. He wants to know if the day is a "home" day or a "school" day primarily because he wants to know if he's going to get to play his game. As a parent of a preschooler I'm somewhat terrified of the addictive power of the computer screen. As someone who has had her fair share of gaming addictions, I'm enjoying watching him find his first gaming love.

Weekly Weight Loss

This week I'm up 0.7. It was hard to maintain the calorie tracking with guests in town. I also think last week weigh-in registered a little low and this week is registering a little high. C'est la vie. Next week is a new week.

Last Week's Special Event

We had an amazing visit with my in-laws. The children are in love. Grandma played ping pong and "bat the ball" with Ava every time she asked. Grandpa pretended to be a bear and chased giggling children all over the back yard.

The highlight of the visit was a trip to an extraordinary children's museum here in town that is essentially an indoor/outdoor playground created from recycled stuff for adults and children to play in together. They take donations from all kinds of companies and turn ordinary things into an extraordinary playground. They have a bus hanging half off their roof and you can climb into it (we did). They have airplanes suspended around a courtyard connected by wire tunnels and you climb around from one to another. They have castle turrets and a maze of concrete tunnels, slides, and stairs under the floor of one of the rooms. It is a place where you can explore, push boundaries of fear a little, and get a ton of amazing exercise. My fitbit told me I had climbed the equivalent of 31 flights of stairs by the time we left. I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy chasing children into scary places. Here's one I caught of my husband, son, and a friend at the top of a wire tower (at least three stories up) and another a friend caught of me following her daughter and my children up one of those wire tunnels to an airplane. I wish I had more. The place is amazing.

Data and Diagnosis

Let's take some snapshots.

Ava just shy of two years old. No words. Three consonants and one vowel in her phonemic inventory. Not able to imitate. History of reduced babbling. Lots of red flags for Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Ava at three. Decent phonetic inventory. Speaking in multi-word sentences. Significantly reduced intelligibility. Exhibiting many age inappropriate phonological processes. Diagnosis would look a lot like a phonological processing disorder with a motor-planning (apraxic) component.

Ava at 3 1/2. Intelligibility is improving. Many phonological processes are resolving - even the ones that are still age appropriate (cluster reduction, stopping of stridents, etc.). It would be difficult to describe Ava's speech problems as a phonological processing disorder at this point. She has numerous speech errors which are resistant to intervention due to the underlying motor planning component (stubborn, stubborn velars).

Same kid. Same neurology. The "diagnosis" looks different at different points. We get so hung up on a label. We need them for insurance and schools. Parents and SLP's tend to like them too. It is more important to understand the characteristics of the speech at that point in time and to have a plan to remediate the current spectrum of problems. Then you have to periodically re-evaluate with an open mind and be responsive to change.

Fascinating stuff.

(Typically, you'd never administrate the same instrument three times in five months. In this particular case it was done because of the timing of Ava's IEP. They assessed her at intake, at the end of the school year, and then at the beginning of this school year. The results are not simply an artifact of retesting though. She has indeed made progress in the areas noted. It's pretty amazing actually.)

Soliciting Opinions on Age of Acquisition Guidelines

It's terribly hard to qualify a speech-only child based upon specific articulation errors because the age range for age of acquisition is so wide. However, for the sake of this discussion, let's set aside the issue of qualification and just discuss treatment. You have a (hypothetical) child enrolled in therapy. You've been treating them for some time, and the only errors they have left are "age appropriate." Do you continue to treat or discharge that client from therapy?

Or, let's say you have a child with a frontal lisp on /s/ production that is very noticeable, but they're only 4-5 years old. Do you treat the lisp? I'm inclined to treat. I feel like letting certain errors go just tends to set them in stone, so to speak. By the time the errors are finally age inappropriate, the mispronounciations are fully habituated and harder to treat than they would have been if you had addressed them earlier.

I was hoping to get some other opinions. Have any of you encountered situations where children with a history of speech errors that need treatment had "age appropriate" errors resolve on their own without treatment as the child ages? I'm prompted to ask because of Michael.

Michael had a tendency to produce a wide variety of sounds interdentally. /f/, /v/, /s/, and /z/ were all produced with significant tongue protrusion. Given his abnormal speech history (almost completely absent babbling, no vowel productions or "cooing" until over 8 months of age, no words at all until 15 months...) and his sister's more significant speech issues, I decided to treat. /s/ and /z/ are pretty much completely resolved, and /f/ and /v/ are well on their way although still problematic in conversation. At 4 1/2, problems with /f/ are now age inappropriate, but that's the only speech error he has that currently would "qualify" for treatment.

I could step back now. I could work gently, but persistently on /f/ and /v/ when they come up naturally in conversation and just take a wait and see approach on the final remaining errors (/f/ for /th-/ and /d/ for /th+/). /th/ is a sound that would never qualify for treatment at 4 1/2. Given the history, would you wait and see if the /th/ resolves on its own or would you work on it?

The Weekly Review: Week 74

SLP Resource of the Week

Heidi at Mommy Speech Therapy put together a really nice free downloadable articulation screener. Two pages contain 46 picture prompts. Results are tallied on simple, attractive scoring sheets separated into phoneme organized by age of acquisition. This is definitely a resource worth checking out.

Ava this Week

My little girl is loving preschool. Up until the very last day, Ava protested being left at daycare. She didn't look forward to it and clung to my legs when I dropped her off. She was fine, but she didn't love it. Now, she loves school. She looks forward to going, and doesn't even watch me go when I walk out of her door. The preschool teacher and teacher's assistant in her room are wonderful and do an amazing job of making the children feel welcome in their room. They have a routine in place for the children's arrival which works really well for Ava. She knows exactly what to do when she walks in and looks forward to the routine. I am enjoying watching her do well at school.

Weekly Michael

Michael is also doing really well in his new pre-kindergarten classroom. I was worried he'd be jealous of Ava moving into "his" old room, but he hasn't worried about it at all. He's much more social this year. He has a group of friends that he enjoys playing with and when they all walk out at the end of their morning they walk out together in a group and head over to me talking all the while. Some of their topics of conversation are... interesting. The waiting area at the school has some benches and one has a memorial on it for a teacher who died a few years ago. Several of the boys are convinced she's buried under the bench and I have to reassure them every day that there isn't a body under their feet. Michael also announced that they've all chosen his future bride. I, shamefully, have forgotten her name. I have been informed that Michael will be getting married to her though. It's fun and rather entertaining to watch the social "skills" of a group of four year olds emerge.

Weekly Weight Loss

I'm down a somewhat inexplicable 1.5 pounds this week. I haven't really done anything different. I'm still walking the calorie/activity tracking path trying to stick pretty closely to my allocated number of calories per day. I'm guessing that "natural variations" in weight just happened to swing in my favor this week. Still, it's encouraging to see things continue to head in the right direction. I'm down about 10 pounds from where I started. Not bad at all.

Weekly Special Event

Our entire household is excitedly anticipating visitors this weekend. My husband's parents are driving into town to see us for an extended weekend. They are wonderful people who adore their grandchildren and are adored in return. We'll spend one day out on the town visiting a children's museum and having lunch out. The agenda for the other two days is still up in the air, but I know we will enjoy their company. I will be taking a blogging hiatus during their visit. I should be back early next week. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend too.

Final TH (voiceless): Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Final /th/ (voiceless) Card Set

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.

Description

This articulation picture card set is designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for this set is young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with voiceless final /th/ at a one-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in this set. The set pairs the final /th/ with as many different vowel sounds as possible to maximize co-articulation variety.

Key Features

• This set includes 15 therapy cards with the target word and picture on the front, and the difficulty level and a carrier phrase on the back.
• The words are all VC or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.
• Combines the target sound with a variety of vowel sounds.
• Words are sorted by difficulty level for an easy progression from easy to hard.

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. Other card sets include /p, b, t, d, m, n, h, f, v, k, g, w, s, z, l, th, ch, sh, s-blends, and l-blends/ and more sets are being added regularly.

What kinds of activities can I do with this cardset?

1. 10 Card Set Game and Activity Ideas
   
2. Simple Speech Card Puzzles
   
3. Speech Card Stories
   
4. Speech Card Caterpillar
   
5. Speech Card Game: What's Hiding?
   
6. Speech Card Game: Speech Switcheroo (An Uno-Style Game)
   
7. Speech Card Set Activity: Magnetic Speech Cards
   
8. Speech Card Game: Speech Fours
   
9. Speech Card Game: Old Maid
   
10. Speech Card Set Activity: Bang!
    
11. Speech Card Set Activity: What's Hiding Behind Door Number...?
    
12. Speech Card Set Activity: Customizing a Homework Sheet
    
13. Speech Card Set Activity: Making a Simple Sentence Flipbook
    
14. Speech Game: Find-It
    
15. Speech Card Set Activity: Speech Art Collage
    
16. Speech Card Set Activity: Speech Crowns
    

Minimal Pairs Speech Therapy Activities

The new school year is here and Ava is back in her speech therapy group twice a week for 45 minutes. We have a wonderful opportunity to participate in a speech-only program that uses a Hodson Cycles approach to phonological processing therapy which is a great fit for her.

While Michael and I wait, I'll be doing speech therapy with him. That way, I know both children will get at least 90 minutes of therapy a week. I've been busy preparing some materials for Michael.

I did a brief screening with Michael last week. At this point, his /f/ and /v/ production are almost 100% correct at the word level, but he still produces them interdentally at least half the time in conversation. So essentially, his /f/ and /v/ are produced as a /th/. This is ironic, because he substitutes an /f/ for the voiceless /th/ even at the word level. He also substitutes /d/ for the voiced /th/. Those are his only errors. So in summary, his only errors are on /f/, /v/, and /th/ and he often substitutes /f/ for /th/ and vice versa. So, with some encouragement by our private speech therapist we're going to use a minimal pairs approach to working with these sounds.

I made a voiceless /th/ - /f/ minimal pairs set and we're going to begin working with those. Here are the types of activities I'm planning on doing with them. Does anyone have any additional ideas or activities for working with minimal pairs?

Minimal Pairs Therapy Activities

• If child is reading, or has good phonological awareness skills, discuss the letter-sound correspondences of the targeted contrasting phonemes first.
• Play a sorting game. (For this activity you'll have to cut the pairs in half.) Have the child sort the /f/ words into one pile and the /th/ words into another pile. Add some fun to this game by sorting into fun containers or pretending the cards are eaten by a puppet. If your child is savvy enough to "cheat" by looking at the printed words on the cards, hide the text when they are performing the sorting task.
• Auditory bombardment. Have the child put on his or her listening ears. Then read all the /f/ words to the child. Next read all the /th/ words. Finally, read the contrasting pairs -slightly- emphasizing the contrasting phoneme.
• Listen and point game (auditory discrimination). Again have your child put on his or her listening ears. Place one contrasting pair set in front of the child. Hide your face behind a piece of paper and say one of the words. The child must point to the word you produce. To make this activity a little harder, use the word with a carrier phrase ("I see a...", "I like the...", etc.).
• Matching game. (Cut pairs in half.) Shuffle the cards and have the child sort and match the contrasting pairs.
• Memory game. (Cut pairs in half.) Shuffle the cards and lay in grid face down. Play memory using the contrasting pairs and two halves of a match.
• Production practice. Practice, practice, practice. Have the child say the words. Say the /f/ words. Then say the /th/ words. Then say the word contrast pairs.
• Create-a-sentence. (Cut pairs in half.) Shuffle the cards and draw two to three cards. Make up a sentence using those cards and have the child repeat the sentence. If they can, have the child make up their own sentence.
• Create-a-story. (Cut pairs in half.) Shuffle the cards and draw four to six cards. Make up a story using those cards and have the child tell it back to you. If they can, have the child make up their own story.

Voiceless TH / F Minimal Pairs Picture Cards

Voiceless /th/ - /f/ Minimal Pairs Card Set

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.

Description

This articulation picture card set focuses on the contrast between voiceless /th/ and /f/. It would be a great set to use with a child who is substituting voiceless /th/ for /f/ or vice versa. Usually I avoid vocalic /r/ in my card sets, but there are not a lot of these minimal pair contrasts around, so I did include some vocalic /r/ words. There are no consonant blends in this set in order to minimize phonemic complexity.

Key Features

• This set includes 14 picture cards (7 th/f minimal pairs) with the target word and picture on the front.
• The words are simple in syllable shape and include no consonant blends.
• Combines the target sounds with a variety of vowels in order to increase phonemic variety and improve carryover.

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. Other card sets include /p, b, t, d, m, n, h, f, v, k, g, w, s, z, l, th, ch, sh, s-blends, and l-blends/ and more sets are being added regularly.

Initial TH (voiceless): Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Initial /th/ (voiceless) Card Set

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.

Description

This articulation picture card set is designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for this set is young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with voiceless initial /th/ at a one-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in this set. The set pairs the initial /th/ with as many different vowel sounds as possible to maximize co-articulation variety.

Key Features

• This set includes 12 therapy cards with the target word and picture on the front, and the difficulty level and a carrier phrase on the back.
• The words are all CV or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.
• Combines the target sound with a variety of vowel sounds.
• Words are sorted by difficulty level for an easy progression from easy to hard.

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. Other card sets include /p, b, t, d, m, n, h, f, v, k, g, w, s, z, l, th, ch, sh, s-blends, and l-blends/ and more sets are being added regularly.

What kinds of activities can I do with this cardset?

1. 10 Card Set Game and Activity Ideas
   
2. Simple Speech Card Puzzles
   
3. Speech Card Stories
   
4. Speech Card Caterpillar
   
5. Speech Card Game: What's Hiding?
   
6. Speech Card Game: Speech Switcheroo (An Uno-Style Game)
   
7. Speech Card Set Activity: Magnetic Speech Cards
   
8. Speech Card Game: Speech Fours
   
9. Speech Card Game: Old Maid
   
10. Speech Card Set Activity: Bang!
    
11. Speech Card Set Activity: What's Hiding Behind Door Number...?
    
12. Speech Card Set Activity: Customizing a Homework Sheet
    
13. Speech Card Set Activity: Making a Simple Sentence Flipbook
    
14. Speech Game: Find-It
    
15. Speech Card Set Activity: Speech Art Collage
    
16. Speech Card Set Activity: Speech Crowns