Ultimate Articulation Introduction

Over the last 33 years as a speech therapist I have tried just about every possible approach to help children say sounds and words correctly. This resource brings together the best parts of everything that I have found to be helpful.

  • A collection of over 4600 specifically selected words and images.
  • Picture Symbols and Labels for every sound in English.
  • Effective Hand Gestures and Movements that make it easier for children to say the sounds correctly.

The materials and tools can be used with any type of speech sound disorder including developmental articulation delay, phonological speech impairment. dysarthria and childhood apraxia of speech.

Program Principles:

  • Sounds are not produced in isolation. What comes before and after the target sound affects how the target sound is made. Being able to fluidly and automatically move from one sound to the next is critical for proper articulation. The only way to practice these movements is to use words that have the correct sound combinations. This program provides multiple representations of every possible sound combination in English.
  • Vowels are critical. Vowels carry the meaning of words. Without the right vowels children are much harder to understand. Because each vowel is produced in a different place in the mouth, they make it easier or harder to say the sounds that come before and after. Each English vowel sound is sorted and paired with all of the different consonant sounds making it easy to practice the right vowel consonant combinations.
  • Word Shapes affect how easy or difficult it is to say each sound correctly. Every word shape from the very simple CV and VC to complex ones such as CVCVCVCVCVC are represented with words from 1 to 5 syllables in length.
  • In addition to word shapes and sound combinations, all of the English sounds are represented in the Beginning, Middle and End positions of words. This makes it easy to practice words in a traditional articulation approach.
  • Functional, meaningful words are ideal to use in practice. Improving a child’s ability to make themselves understood is often the first and last goal of therapy. This program provides numerous meaningful words that children can use every day to help them communicate more effectively.
  • New and unique words are often needed to break bad habits and to adequately practice the different sound combinations. Less common words, words from long ago, words that have origins in different languages and some words that are original (non-sense words) provide this variety.
  • Practice materials need to be fun and engaging. All images are fun high quality colorful clipart. The smaller version of the images are just a bit smaller than standard playing cards. Taping these to the cards makes it easy to play fun games.
  • Hand gestures make it easier to say sounds. The program has gestures for all of the English vowel and consonant sounds. The gestures I use do their best to mimic how the sounds are made. This makes the gestures more effective.
  • Meaningful labels and picture symbols representing each sound makes it easier for children to understand and produce the sounds. English is confusing. 52 unique picture symbols and labels provide children with the information they need. Every practice image has the picture symbols below it showing each sound in the word.
  • R is not always R. The R sound that comes at the start of words is a different sound than the R used in blends and that comes after vowels. Having different labels for these two sounds (Race Car and Angry Bird) makes it easier for children to say each correctly.

How the Program is Organized

  • There are two main parts. The Tools (Picture Symbols, Sound Labels, Hand Gestures) and the Practice Images.
  • The Tools come in two formats. The long version explains how to make each sound and provides tips to help establish it. The short version has the Sound Labels, Picture Symbols and the Hand Gestures in a convenient printer friendly chart.
  • The Practice Images are divided into two volumes. Volume 1 has 2,121, VC, CV, CVC and VCV words. Volume 2 has an additional 2,496 words with all of the consonant blends and more complex word shapes.
  • Words in each volume are organized by:
    • Sound
    • Accompanying Vowels
    • Syllable Shape
    • Word Length
    • And Alphabetically
  • Each Practice Image comes in two sizes. Small images are 2.2” by 3.2” and fit well onto a standard sized playing card. Each large image is a full page.
  • The practice images in each volume are used to represent different sound combinations, word shapes or word length. The images occur randomly through each volume. Find the words you want by using the page numbers in each table of contents or search for them in each PDF. Each volume has separate PDFs for the small and large versions.

Sets of images that target specific sounds are available in my How to Work on programs.

  • For the most part I use the sounds for each word that are found in Typical American English. If you pronounce a word differently, change or ignore the picture symbols below each word.
  • I show the sounds for words as they occur in everyday connected speech. Children need to learn to say words as we say them, not as they are listed in a dictionary. For example, “Favorite” can be considered as a three-syllable word but we typically say it with only two syllables.
  • When we say two or more words together, especially in common phrases, we say them as one word. Phrases such as “Say it again” and “I want to” are treated as single words.
  • If two different words have the same spelling or if there are two common ways to say the same word then they are listed as versions (1) and (2).
  • Consonant Blends, Clusters and Combinations are important. Children, especially those who have trouble with motor planning, need to work on these. This program has all of the typical consonant blends plus every reasonable consonant combination where the different consonants flow into each other.

How to Use the Program

  • My most important rule of speech therapy is that children must practice success. They need to be provided with the information they need to say the sounds correctly. Every child is unique. Some will need to use all of the Tools and to start with specifically selected words. Others will need much less support. Use the tools that work best for each child.
  • Find the practice images that your child needs to work on. I like to create custom sets of practice images by printing out individual pages or by digitally cutting and pasting the images. Digital sets of images makes it easy to share with parents and teachers.
  • Minimal pairs, pairs of words that differ by only one sound, are very powerful in practice. While not listed, this program contains many minimal pairs. Find the ones that you need.
  • I sometimes like to use images of actual brothers, sisters, toys, pets, places etc. in place of clipart ones. This makes practice more meaningful and children who are very hard to understand can use these images to communicate their basic needs by pointing to them or by trading them for what they want.
  • Mount the smaller sized pictures onto playing cards. This makes them more durable and lets you play fun card games.
  • Use the large format images to introduce harder words and to highlight the correct syllable stress in longer words.
  • The picture symbols for each sound can be very helpful to work on phonological awareness. Children with speech difficulty often need extra help to learn that words are made up of different sounds.
  • The hand gestures provide a good way to cue children to produce the sounds correctly. When a child sees that you are using a certain gesture it helps them to know what sound is expected.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

You can reach me at SLP@Speech-TherapyAtHome.com.

I hope you find this resource helpful.

Garth Schindel SLPatHome