Strategies & Apps To Help Children with Articulation Disorders

Strategies & Apps for Therapists and Parents To Help Children with Articulation Disorders | District Speech & Language Therapy | Speech Therapists in Washington DC

I recently completed a continuing education seminar on speech sound disorders, and probably the most salient thing I learned was that the phrase, “He’s just an artic kid,” misses the big picture when describing a child with an articulation/speech sound disorder.

Here’s a fact:

Atypical speech error patterns lead to an increased risk for reading/spelling difficulties.

I think many speech therapists (including myself) were trained to work on articulation in isolation, without considering other areas in a child’s development that could also be impacted. Oftentimes, children who struggle to produce various sounds are not perceptually processing those sounds. In other words, it’s not only the production of the sound that is difficult, but also their awareness of the sound.

When a child enters school, being “aware” of the difference between speech sounds is crucial to developing strong reading and spelling skills. Thus, it makes sense that our “articulation only” kids are at such an increased risk for reading/spelling difficulties.

As a speech therapist who works with many children with articulation difficulties, I have begun to incorporate more phonological/print awareness activities into my sessions. This simply means I am not only focused on helping the child to “produce” the speech sounds correctly, but also helping to build their awareness and recognition between the different speech sounds and their corresponding letters (which is how we are able to learn how to read and spell). Below are a number of apps, books, and other resources I have found helpful for increasing the phonological awareness skills of children with articulation disorders.

If you live in the D.C. area and have concerns about your child’s language or articulation and would like to seek additional help beyond what your school based speech therapists may be able to provide, visit our speech therapy services page for more information on our assessment and speech therapy services for kids of all ages.

Iphone/Ipad apps that target phonological awareness:

  • Sound Sorting
  • Beginning sounds
  • Endless ABC
  • Endless Reader
  • Bugsy Reads
  • Preschool Rhyming game
  • Multisyllabic words
  • Syllable Awareness Themes
  • Rhyme Time Pro
  • Partners in Rhyme

Books that are great to teach and reinforce Rhyming:

  • Pants on Ants
  • Some Smug Slug
  • Mig the Pig
  • Go by Goat
  • Hungry Thing
  • Bendamolina
  • Miss Bindergarten gets ready for kindergarten
  • Walter was worried
  • Bark Park

http://www.sandraboynton.com/sboynton/Introduction.html

Helpful website links/resources

Phonological awareness resources:

http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/people/gillon/

Easy to hard phonological awareness activities:

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/development-phonological-skills

Phonological awareness activities:

http://www.phonologicalawareness.org

Research:

http://speechbite.com/speechbite/search/articlesearch

Norms:

http://www.asha.org/SLP/schools/prof-consult/norms/

 

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District Speech and Language Therapy specializes in speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy solutions, for both children and adults, in the Washington D.C and the Arlington Virginia areas.