Speech | Articulation | Sound Therapy
Sometimes, the path to clear communication has a few bumps along the way. Whether your child is struggling to form specific sounds or is finding it hard to recognize the "ingredients" of words, understanding the why is the first step toward progress.
1. Building Clear Speech: Articulation
Articulation is the physical "work" of speech. It’s how your child uses their tongue, lips, and teeth to produce specific sounds. When a child has an articulation disorder, they might struggle to coordinate these movements, leading to sounds being swapped, left out, or changed.
You might notice patterns in these errors (often called phonological processes). While these patterns are a normal part of learning to talk, they can make it difficult for people outside the family to understand what your child is saying.
What does this sound like?
Substitutions: Saying "tat" instead of "cat" or "wun" instead of "run."
Omissions: Saying "ope" instead of "open" or "baf" instead of "bath."
Complex Errors: Shortening longer phrases, like "pi me uh" for "pick me up."
How therapy helps:
Think of articulation therapy as "muscle memory" for the mouth. We focus on the motor aspects of speech, teaching your child the exact "how-to" for a new sound. We start small and celebrate every victory as we move from:
Single Sounds → Syllables → Words → Phrases → Full Conversations
2. The Bridge to Literacy: Phonemic Awareness
Before a child can read a book, they have to learn to "read" the sounds they hear.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and play with the individual sounds in spoken words.
This includes skills like:
Blending: Putting sounds together to make a word (c-a-t = cat)
Segmenting: Breaking a word down into its sounds (dog = d-o-g).
Deleting: Hearing what’s left of a word if you take a sound away.
The "Pre-Reading" Connection
These skills are the literal building blocks of literacy.
When a child understands that spoken words are made of individual sounds, they gain a massive head start in learning to spell and read.
How These Skills Work Together
It is very common for a child to navigate challenges with both articulation and pre-reading skills at the same time—though they can also occur separately.