How to Run an Articulation Therapy Session

It takes some practice to find your rhythm with running an articulation therapy session. Here I share what works for me.

how to run an articulation session

This is my format for a typical articulation session (30 min).

0-2:00 min Daily rapport building and check-in. For older kids, this might include finding out how a recent presentation went or if one is on the horizon. It also gives me a chance to see how things sound in connected speech. I seldom make any corrections during this time.

2:00-5:00 min Recap I always start by asking what we are working on. It is very important to me that my students are able to verbalize their own goals! We also do quick reminders on things we need to remember (i.e. lip position) to get mentally prepared.

Be sure you start at the beginning! An Introduction to Articulation has isolation and syllable level practice sheets.

5:00-10:00 min Rapid Sequence Drills I often run my students through sequences of nonsense syllables, starting at a slow pace and increasing the rate until they break down. Most of the kids find this kind of silly and fun and don’t view it as “work”.

10:00-25:00 min Therapy Activities This is the meat of our treatment session. For most kids I’ll have 2-3 different activities even if the target words are staying the same. My goal is to get 100-150 trials of the sound per session. I also try to include a short activity burst that is one step beyond what they are currently doing. So, for example, if I have a child working on single words, we’ll do one activity or portion of an activity in which they add a carrier phrase. This is critical to assisting with carry-over as well as pushing them forward.

25:00-27:00 min Session Feedback Lots of kids like the chance to see how many trials they’ve accomplished. This is when I also hand out stickers or homework.

27:00-30:00 min Closing I write a quick note if I haven’t had a chance to do it during the session and set up for the next child.

How does this vary from how you run an articulation therapy session?

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The views expressed in this blog are my own and are intended to inspire other speech-language pathologists in their own practice. If you are a parent, teacher or other educator, these ideas are not intended to take the place of treatment by a certified clinician. Read full disclaimer here.