Atypical production of speech sounds that may interfere with intelligibility

Suggestions for activities families can work on at home to practice articulation skills:

• - Read books that emphasize the sounds in words, such as books that repeat specific sounds on each page, such as “Sheep in a Jeep” for ‘sh, j’ or "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," for final "sh".

- Help your child make a picture of items that start with a specific sound (cut them out of magazines, or draw them). Fold a few pieces of blank paper together and staple the sides to make a book. You can have your child help you think of words with a specific sound, or make your own repetitive book, i.e. if your child is working on /k/ instead of /b/, make a book similar to “Brown Bear” with a character such as ‘Kind Koala’ (Kind Koala, kind Koala up in your tree. What other animals do you see?). See how many animals the koala can see that start with /k/ or /g/.

- Play games that focus on initial sounds, or end sounds (rhyming). “I spy something that starts with ‘f.’ You can add details, if it is difficult for your child to guess. “It has four legs, and you sit down at it to eat. What is it?”

- Write a word-of –the-day or word-of-the-week on the calendar that includes your child’s target sound/s. Encourage him /her to use the word as often as possible, and to produce it correctly. You can get the whole family involved by making it into a little competition to see who can use the word the most frequently. You can correct your child when they say that word, or have them repeat it correctly, but if you’re making it into a competition, don’t penalize them for incorrect productions.

- Try out some games and activities on the computer. Visit www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster2/sptherapy.html and http://www.consonantlyspeaking.com for speech and language related activities, or pbskids.org for games which focus on the sounds in words.

- Have your child make a paper bag puppet and draw/find/cut out pictures of foods with you child’s sounds. Cut an opening in the “mouth” of the paper bag so that you can feed the hungry puppet. “I’m hungry. Can I have a _______________? Thank you.”

- Play games that require using structured language so that your child can practice the words containing the sounds they are working on. The structured language will also help them be able to predict the words which contain their target sounds. A good example is “Guess Who.” This game is great for working on /r/ and /s/ in questions such as, “Does your person have brown hair?”

• Make a picture of a zoo, park, or underwater scene (either a drawing, or with pictures cut out of old magazines). Include pictures with words with the sounds your child is working on. If you have difficulty thinking of words, search for word lists on the internet, i.e. "s words speech therapy."