I work with several children with articulation goals–aged 3-7. Lately, several of them are at the same stage of trying to carry over the correct production of their sounds. They are able to produce the sounds correctly in sentences but when we move to conversation or during an activity, they are not as accurate. I start with increasing their auditory discrimination of correct and incorrect sounds in my speech and move to recognition in their speech. I ask them to give me a thumbs up if I said it a good or bad way. They have fun with that. Then we focus attention of listening to them.
The other day, a five-year-old girl taught me a great strategy. She said a word incorrectly while she was talking, then looked up at me and said, “I will fix that,” and proceeded to correct herself! I saw two more children that day in a similar stage in therapy and tried that same line. “Can you fix that?” Somehow the kids loved the idea of them fixing their speech, not me!
Another little boy corrected himself, seemed surprised, looked at me and said, “I fixed that!” It is a wonderful way to teach kids to be responsible for their speech carryover as well as build auditory awareness and discrimination skills.
Try this out and let me know what ideas you use to effect carryover of sounds you are working on.
