Have you ever had a child on your caseload who says the /d/ sound for lots of other sounds? For example, a sentence like, “I got four stamps,” might sound like, “I dod dour dam.”     Or, have you ever looked through your assessment data and, while you’re categorizing patterns (as many of us do!), have realized to yourself, “I see a lot of /d/ sounds in their productions! These types of presentations usually make me dig a little deeper, and I start to investigate whether:   * A phoneme collapse (or “favoured sound”) is present. This is where one sound (e.g., /d/) is substituted ..read more

If you’ve ever felt that you lacked accurate visuals or cues to support /s/ distortions, or lacked confidence in teaching a more accurate /s/ sound, or perhaps felt less effective when it comes to cueing, we’re here to help.  As speech pathologists, we know the importance of flexibility in determining which cues work best for each student. We are always looking for effective strategies to support our students with speech sound disorders. With each new case, we assess, probe, and experiment with different cues, visuals, and reso ..read more

Are you tired of the same old articulation cards?  I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can’t face another game of “Memory” or “Go Fish”.  That is when I reach for our Articulation Squares – they are just the thing to make Articulation Therapy fun again!  Articulation Squares are a versatile alternative to articulation sheets or cards.  They are perfectly sized to fit in a task box and now include our beautifully illustrated mouth shapes and 12 target words for initial, medial, final, and mixed positions.  We love our articulation squares because they can be u ..read more

Would you like an extra tool to assist with producing a clear /s/ sound? Have you ever pondered why certain words make it easier for children to articulate the /s/ sound clearly? Utilizing and knowing about facilitative contexts can explain why specific word contexts can offer the best opportunities for eliciting a crisp /s/ sound in children.  START WITH A SCREENER: I’ve been administering a facilitative contexts screener to my students and the results have been SO helpful! Not only does it help to determine a starting place for therapy, but I’m able to use words the child can actu ..read more

Do you feel pressure to always be buying the latest toys to keep therapy interesting for the children you work with? What if I told you there are so many things you can do with simple toys you probably already have in your cupboard?  I love to share my tips and tricks on keeping therapy activities engaging enough for kids to be motivated, but not so fun that they can’t focus on the high-trial practice I need them to do.   Hiding marbles in kinetic sand is a simple way to do this.  I love this activity for finding that sweet spot of high trials while keeping the child enga ..read more

Are you looking for new 100 trials in speech therapy sheets? Whether you need more activities to motivate your students or you’d just like you reach your practice goal, you will love this 25-page free set Each page contains 10 rows of 10 pictures, which equals 100 mini pictures on the page. This makes it easy for the SLP to track the number of practice trials they are getting in their session by stamping, coloring, or checking off each picture as the child says their target words. Pages include: * emojis (pictured) * zoo animals and pets * Holidays (e.g., Valentines, St Patricks Day, Eas ..read more

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this, but some kids can be really reluctant to open their mouths and participate in an oral motor examination because   a) they don’t really know you  b) they’re not sure what’s going to happen  c) I think many kids see us donning our gloves and waving around a light and tongue depressor and think it might hurt! try this in your next oral motor exam Let the child look inside your mouth first. When I tell my students that they can switch off the lights and hand them a torch to look inside my mouth and tell me all the things they can see… their ..read more

Are you looking for some new ways to teach Final Consonant Deletion? It can be confusing for parents and children alike to hear that they will be working on Final Consonant Deletion in speech therapy. Explaining this tricky concept and language simply in a way that relates to the child’s interests is important for therapy success. Having a few tricks up your sleeve helps you to match the metaphor to what makes sense to the individual child, so the concept of final consonant deletion “clicks” for them.  We are sharing three child-friendly and meaningful cues for children when introd ..read more

Do you know about the ‘H’ Insertion trick but want to see someone actually use it?  Maybe you aren’t sure about at what point in therapy you would use this trick?  I love the ‘H’ Insertion trick to help problem solve children who have stopping or voicing.  Imagine this – you have done some therapy and the child is aware of the sound they are meant to be saying on the front of the word, but they just can’t seem to break that old way of saying the word.    An example is the child who knows the difference between ‘day’ and ‘say’ and they know to make it sound diffe ..read more

One of our favourite topics is elicitation tips!  And all SLPs know how tricky it can be to elicit a /k/ or /g/ sound.  Have you ever thought of this tip? Use a bite block or 3 tongue depressors taped together (make 2 of these) to “prop” open each side of the jaw, so we can see the back of the tongue go up without the mouth closing.  It is actually really hard to say a “front” /t/ or /d/ sound with these in your mouth!  The child will get some great visual and tactile feedback about what it looks and feels like to keep the jaw open and lift up the back of the tongue. &nbs ..read more