How to Improve Mumbling

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from a blog post that originally appeared on Speech Room News. Preschool and elementary students might have all expected speech sounds in their sound inventory, but still don’t speak clearly. For lack of a better description, they mumble. They demonstrate reduced intelligibility in conversational speech, a situation that might effect their success in the classroom. I worked with quite a few mumblers over the years and found success with the following approaches. I usually start by recording the students participating in a casual conversation and show them what they sound like to others. Awareness of their reduced intelligibility is a big part of the issue. Grab your smart phone and let them listen to their speech. Next, introduce and explain mumbling. I love this Flinstones example! Although a bit exaggerated, it gets students’ attention. Up next—play the mumbling game! I play this video and ask students to try it. It’s a fun way to start listening to your own voice. I make sure to emphasize how mumbling occurs when speakers don’t open their mouths wide enough. Next, I use animal comparisons to focus on students’ rate of speech. Start by talking about which animal moves the slowest versus the fastest. Pick a sentence to say, such as: “Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a house in the woods.” Ask students to say it as fast as they can as “cheetah” speech. It’s too fast. Now instruct ...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Tags: Speech-Language Pathology Early Intervention Language Disorders Speech Disorders Source Type: blogs