[ Post a Response | Games, Thematic Units, and Class Lessons ]
Posted by mj on 12/4/2008, 12:19 am, in reply to "articulation"
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Questions I'd ask: Is she intelligible? Does she have many sound errors? Is there an apraxia component- which may result in vowel distortion that will last for some time? If she also has lots of consonant errors some suggestions below might help her practice her vowels and simple consonant combinations- while also working on increasing oral motor movements. Her vowel prolonging may not be easily corrected, needs to be addressed along with other needs she may have. It may take a lot of therapy depending on other factors. What is your primary goal? Is it intelligibility? Does she have key words that she should say to help her in her school environment? Some possible ideas that may be a springboard for other and better ideas are noted below:
Trying some simple songs like Old MacDonald Had a Farm - with lots of "ee-ii-ee-ii-o" because this pattern may provide practice picking up the pace, while practicing tongue, lip, jaw movement- even with low muscle tone and then stressing the sound each animal makes in this song - like the horse - "with a neigh neigh here"(our speech horse says "nay-nay" no fancy sounds!) .. and so on - as this adds the consonant sound - some vowels tend to be more easily prolonged and you need to be careful of that- or just not make a big deal of it(like the pig sound) -also look at the lip movements when she's speaking as often these kiddoes may exaggerate lip and jaw movements- and not want to use much tongue movements. Then other fun made up activities like "The Giant who says 'FeFiFoFum' and goes about the room finding__ whatever they need work on - such as other language concepts, or using cards and saying the "carrier prase FeFiFoFum before drawing a card - or using little objects that are hidden in your hand that she gets after saying the carrier phrase. Then she plays with the object until she's ready for the next object. She then puts the first object in the bucket when she's ready for the next 'surprise'..so the playing doesn't interfere with the therapy focus. Also your tapping softly for each consonant/vowel combin she says, will cue her to try a quicker movement - but not to quick in order to decrease vowel prolonging during a structured speech lesson. (Actually the vowels may become a bit distorted when you do this but that's OK.)
Practice the "er" as the Rooster sound or the Pirate sound using made up poems and after each stanza the student pretends to be the rooster like practicing the "er" as it provides nice tongue movement. "Red Rooster you are so big and tall. er-er-er. Your feathers are so long and you are so strong er-er-er" etc.... Also consider doing this for the /l/ sound because of the tongue movement it provides. And here the kids sing "la-la-la" to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb - and they really like this! The student does not have to correctly produce the sound just try closer approximations, with tongue movement while you also model - and it's so much fun - and it does come! Because the vowels change with each consonant they're paired with, this can be quite difficult. So have fun and give her as much exposure and auditory training and auditory bombardment as possible. Does she have other artic or phonological errors? Is she a candidate for the Cycles approach?
I found with several students that working with the /r/ and /l/ really improved the students intelligibility - even though it's a later sound - but you never know which sound will work for a student.
Your approach sounds spot on and there is so much to do with these little ones and certainly oral motor work is necessary as well.
Hopefully this is somewhat helpful and others can share other ideas. Have fun with her!
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