Ultimate Speech Sounds

Book excerpt: Ever faced challenges motivating clients to participate in speech therapy practice at home? Directing parents to helpful resources that reinforce acquired skills from therapy sessions can be a problem. This book provides easy-to-follow instructions, educational resources, and links to 3D animated clips for therapists to use with parents to ensure perfect technique every time. The book considers each of the 24 English consonants, 16 monophthongs, and 8 diphthongs in detail with regards to anatomy, physiological production, and therapy materials to be used in practice. It is accompanied by online 3D animated video material featuring DARA®, an avatar that sounds out each consonant or vowel, clearly showing how the shape of the mouth and positioning of the tongue forms each sound. Photocopiable and free downloadable material from Resourceible.com also makes ideal resources for parents to use at home. This book offers a toolkit to support technique explanation to parents and children rather than an education for therapists. It is a practical clinic resource to help speech therapists teach speech sound formation along with suggested elicitation techniques. This is an essential component for newly qualified and student SLTs as well as those more seasoned in the field.