Articulation Therapy with Preschool Children

Preschool articulation therapy can be a challenege. Here are some things that I try to keep in mind for these little 3-5 year olds.

* Make treatment more naturalistic for these small kiddos. Research suggests that therapy for these little ones that looks and feels more like playing, carries over better into the child's every day life.
* Use stories and toys that provide many occasions for the child to hear and say the target sound. Load the environment with the sounds.
* Make sure the child looks at your mouth as you practice saying individual sounds. Practice saying the sounds alone and then try them in words as you play with toys or pictures that have that sound in them. Point to your mouth as you say the target sound.

Here are some of my favorite materials for working with these cuties!

The Amazing Action Alphabet. This is such a cute program! It has an animal picture, song, and suggested action/prompt for each sound. It also has a pretty cute activities book! It is GREAT! I love to use it to introduce each sound to the kids. Once the kids know the prompts it is easy to use them during play therapy as a reminder to use their good sounds.

BUBBLES!!!! they are amazing! I usually use these if I'm trying to get some drill practice out of my clients. I use my schedule board that shows them they have to say 5 words. Once they are done with 5 words I blow bubbles. I like to ask the kids where they want their bubbles to go. I give them options of "up high, down low, at your tummy, at your toes, in front, behind, etc." It is a great way to work in some basic concepts practice at the same time as being a fun reward for the kids.
Letter Sound Tubs. I love to use these for play therapy. It makes it so easy to load the environment with the target sounds in a naturalistic, play therapy way! I think they are from Lakeshore Publications.

Alphatales stories and mini-books. This collection has a story for each sound. Each story is LOADED with the target sound. Read these out loud and have the kids point out things they like on the pages or tell what happened on that page. If you buy the teachers guidebook it has mini-books that you can make for your kids and send home to read with mom and dad. I am really loving these.