HOW TO Start Apraxia Therapy with the Young Child

I recently attended the Colorado Speech, Language and Hearing Association Spring Conference and the speaker gave me a lot to think about. At the conference, Christina Gildersleeve-Neumann, Ph.D., from Portland State University discussed current theories of phonological development and various treatment approaches.  What she said made a lot of sense and affirmed the approach I take in therapy for the young nonverbal child.

It is very risky to diagnosis a young nonverbal child with childhood apraxia of speech.  The child has not yet developed a phonological system so how do you know if it's impaired?  The first step in therapy is to get the child talking. In HOW TO Start Apraxia Therapy with the Young Child, I outline my approach in three steps and provide toy choices to use in play to stimulate speech and language development.  Check it out on TeacherspayTeachers.

HOW TO Remediate a Lateral /S/

Remediation of a lateral /s/ takes patience and a step-by-step approach.  I have had success using the ideas of Pamela Marshalla. This product provides the picture support to work with young children on this often very stubborn articulation error. Check it out on Teachers Pay Teachers.

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HOW TO Remediate Cleft Palate Speech

Hope you had a fun summer!  It's time to get back into the swing of things.  I have several children on my caseload with a cleft palate in various stages of surgical management. The book Therapy Techniques for Cleft Palate Speech & Related Disorders by Karen J. Golding-Kushner, Ph.D., is a great resource for selecting targets and providing cuing techniques. The author suggests words to use in therapy. 

My product provides the picture support for the words suggested by Dr. Golding-Kushner.  In addition, my co-worker Kathryn Duren, MA, CCC-SLP, summarized the cuing techniques for each sound.  Hope you find this resource useful. Check it out at Teachers Pay Teachers.  

HOW TO Remediate Cleft Palate Speech

HOW TO Develop a Strong "R": "R" Blends

R Blends

The "r" sound often gets slighted in "r" blends. I like to highlight the "r" by starting the blend with a helping word, e.g., start "gr" blends with "grrr" as in growl, start "kr" blends with "krrr" as in curl. This makes the "r" more salient to the child. Take a look at a few pages.



HOW TO Develop a Strong "R": Vocalic "R"

Vocalic "R"

Here it is......vocalic "r."  This product took me a lot of time to pull together.  I hope you find it useful.  Please share what works for you.  I'm always looking for new ideas.

HOW TO Develop a Strong "R": Consonantal "R"

Consonantal "R"

R's are tough. You need a lot of tricks up your sleeve as a speech-language pathologist to remediate the "r" sound. I have pulled together techniques I have used over the years and put them in this product.  Some are based on workshops I have attended (Barbara Hodson, Ken Bleile, Pamela Marshalla).  But most are just my twist on things.  In addition to 12 pages of pictures, I have included placement strategies, general guidelines and a list of expansion activites based on children's books. HOW TO develop a strong vocalic "r" and r-blends will follow.