My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

A fun, structured, systematic way to work on your child's strengths and weaknesses at home!

Using A Mirror To Practice Speech Sounds

A basic mirror helps him see his mouth, particularly his lips and tongue, while practicing speech sounds.

This is a very basic idea that we have used quite a bit with Andrew.  He has apraxia of speech which makes it very difficult for him to make certain sounds. What comes naturally and easily over time with most children is something he has to practice A LOT! Part of that practice involves him being aware of what his tongue and lips are doing when trying to make a certain sound. This is where our hand-held mirror comes into play.  While we are doing My Obstacle Course station activities, such as playing games or doing repetition activities to practice his sounds, I have him look in the mirror to make sure that his mouth is doing what it is supposed to be doing. It is such an easy add-on but it makes a huge difference for him to see what it looks like when he is doing it.

My Obstacle Course station activity: Â Listen and repeat while using a mirror to help see where the tongue and lips are for /n/ and /b/. The focus was not on being able to accurately say the whole word but rather the beginning sound.
A mirror to help him see where his tongue is with /th/ sounds. This My Obstacle Course station activity combined handwriting, literacy and oral motor skills. Â He looked at the sticker, wrote a sentence about it using some /th/ words, and then had to read it, making sure his /th/ was not an /f/ sound.

If your child struggle with speech sounds, I encourage you to try adding a mirror to your practice games or activities so they can see what it looks like when done correctly.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!