K and G

I have a whole crew on my caseload that are working on their /k/ and /g/.  All of these kids do something called fronting (for you parents out there reading this, that is when a child turns their /k/ to a /t/ and their /g/ to a /d/.  They produce the back sounds in the front of their mouth).  There are a number of strategies that I use when I work on these two sounds. 

The first day of speech and then periodically throughout the year I will read the book The Case Of The Missing G.  I bought this book at the last CASANA workshop I attended and I couldn't wait to use it!

This book has so many opportunities for auditory bombardment (mostly ng, but it gets us talking about our "missing" sounds) and then later on in your therapy sessions it has opportunities for practice. 

Once we've read the story, I like to start out my kids each session with some auditory discrimination tasks. The first day I just have them listen to me say these words.

    

         

  When I do auditory discrimination, I will go over each card several times and point to which one I'm saying as I go.  Then I'll have the child listen and point or place an object on the word that I say.  After that I will have the child say the words and I point to the one I think they are saying.  Sometimes this is a "light bulb" moment for them.  They don't realize that what they think they're saying is not what I'm actually hearing. Click on the images for the free download.  

Then, I like to get them in front of the mirror so they can see their tongue and where it is going.  I may use a tongue depressor to hold that tongue tip down, I might have the kids lay on their backs and aim for that placement or gargle, or cough or let's face it all of them at once! I have found that it may take them a little bit of time to get these sounds, but once they do a majority of them can make the sounds consistently in isolation after that.  

I'll sometimes use a miniature plastic rocking chair as a visual.  When the rocking chair goes back they make the /k/ or /g/ sound and when the rocking chair goes forward they make a /t/ or /d/ sound.  You can explain that the rocking chair represents their tongue and where the placement is for each of these sounds. 

Addi tonal books that are good for carryover of skills:

Check out Speaking of Speech for some more /k/ and /g/ activities.

Good Luck!