Visual Speech Sound Cues
Cueing in speech therapy can really make a huge difference in the speed of progression!
Cues in speech sound therapy (articulation, phonology and childhood apraxia of speech) are important to provide assistance with accurate speech sound production.
Cues can include:
1) Visual (pictures and hand cues)
2) Auditory (Verbal Model)
3) Tactile (touching)
I use all three of these cues together to optimize the time have in therapy with my students. I usually begin with visual speech sound cue cards that represent the consonant or vowel sound that the child is working on. These sounds each have a name and a “hand cue” to go with it. For example the /p/ sound can be called the “Popcorn Sound” and I use an open hand a the the lips and push it away from my lips when I say /p/.
The Popcorn Sound
By providing the child with the auditory model paired with the movement of the hand cue and the visual picture the child is more likely to make an association with the correct way to make the sound!
Visual picture cues paired with the auditory model can be incorporated into classroom reading programs, drill articulation work and play-based therapy. The visual cues are environmental sounds that the child is familiar with (like the /k/ sound for “coughing” or the /sh/ sound as the “quiet” sound).
Speech Sound Cue Cards
The /k/ or the “Coughing Sound” and the /sh/ or the “quiet sound” with descriptions of hand cues.
The Speech Sound Cue cards work well with children exhibiting Childhood Apraxia of Speech CAS). A motor based approach for CAS is critical for facilitating motor planning and sequenced motor movements with combined sounds. Pairing a consonant with a vowel card (i.e. the “quiet sound” /sh/ with the vowel sound /u/ as in “shoe”) and modeling the motor sequence helps the child make that neural connection. Moving your finger (or the child’s finger) from the consonant to the vowel cue card incorporates the fluid movement intended for the sound sequence.
Children with CAS many times exhibit vowel distortions where the hand cues imitating the lip and jaw shapes can assist with the correct vowel movements.
Children with Phonological Processing Disorders (or when a child makes a predictable patterns of speech sound errors) also benefit from therapy using speech sound cue cards. For example, if a child is working on “Fronting” (producing velar sounds in the front of the mouth), the velar speech sound cue cards can be used together to target the /k/ and /g/ sounds. Often I target several words in play-based therapy for children with phonological processing disorders and have the speech sound cue cards in the vicinity of the toys we are using to refer to when the child’s target word comes up.
For easy storage of the cue cards, I punch a hole in the corner of each card and put them on a circular ring binder clip. The target sounds can be easily removed for use in therapy. I’m always on the go, so this storage method works for me. I’ve also seen therapists store the cards in a binder in baseball card plastic pockets for easy access.
The Speech sound cue cards can also be utilized as a tool for emerging literacy, early acquisition of speech and for traditional articulation therapy
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Animals shoving and pushing each other targeting the phonological process of “Stopping”.