How we can help shape smooth consonant blends

ByLondon Speech and Feeding
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For many children, especially those navigating Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), the challenge isn’t just making individual sounds. It’s the ‘speech gymnastics’ required to move smoothly from one sound to the next.

You might notice that instead of saying ‘Train’, your child says ‘Ter-ain’, or for ‘Frog’, you hear ‘Fer-og’. That sneaky little ‘uh’ sound in the middle is what we call a schwa vowel. In the world of speech science, this is known as epenthesis. It’s essentially a ‘repair strategy’ the brain uses to break up a difficult cluster of sounds into two easier pieces.

While it might seem like a small detail, that tiny vowel makes a big difference in how fluent and clear a child’s speech sounds. In today’s post (and the video below), I am working with my student on ironing out that schwa by focusing on co-articulation—the art of getting the mouth ready for the second sound while still finishing the first.

The ‘best friends’ strategy

To help my student understand this complex movement, I use visual cues and a story. There are many ways to portray two sounds living closely together, but for this session, I used the ‘Best Friends’ story.

In our story, the /T/ and the /R/ are older brother best friends who want to play together. The ‘schwa’ sound is represented by a little sister who keeps trying to jump in the middle of their game! Because my student has a younger sister, this scenario was instantly familiar and helped him visualise why we needed to ‘close the gap’ between those two sounds.

Alternative methods I often use:

Beyond stories, I often use other visual and tactile methods to show the closeness of two sounds:

  • The sliding finger: I draw two dots on a paper—one for /T/ and one for /R/. We slide a finger quickly from one to the other. I might say, ‘Don’t let the ‘uh’ monster jump in the gap!’
  • The rubber band: We stretch a rubber band as we speak. I tell my student that the word is one long, smooth stretch, rather than two separate ‘pops’.
  • Visual cues for ‘quiet’ sounds: I often put my finger to my lips or tap my throat to remind a child to keep the first sound voiceless. If the voice stays ‘off’ during the /T/, it’s much harder for that schwa vowel to creep in.

The importance of ‘pure’ modelling

A major hurdle in clearing up these blends is how we, as adults, model sounds. Often, when teaching the alphabet, we say ‘Kuh’, ‘Puh’ or ‘Tuh’. But if you listen closely, you’re actually adding a vowel! If a child learns that /K/ says ‘Kuh’, it’s only natural they will say ‘Kuh-R’ for /KR/.

To give your child a cleaner blueprint, try modeling ‘pure’ sounds. Think of whispering rather than talking:

  • The /K/ sound: A short, sharp burst of air from the back of the throat. No voice! (A quiet /K/ click).
  • The /P/ sound: Just a ‘pop’ of air from the lips. If your throat vibrates, the vowel has snuck in.
  • The /T/ sound: A tiny tap of the tongue behind the teeth.

Why is this important?

You might ask, ‘If I can still understand them, does it really matter if they say “ter-ain”?’

The goal of speech therapy isn’t just functional communication; it’s building phonological awareness. When a child adds extra vowels, it can eventually impact their literacy. If they hear ‘ter-ain,’ they are much more likely to eventually spell it as ‘terain’ or ‘traint’.

By helping them master these clusters through co-articulation now, we are setting them up for success in reading and writing. And we are giving them the confidence to speak with ease.

Feel free to contact me if your child needs help with clusters or other difficulties either aligned with Childhood Apraxia of Speech or other articulation difficulties.

Sonja McGeachie

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

References

  • Hall, N. (2011). Vowel Epenthesis. In The Blackwell Companion to Phonology (eds M. Oostendorp, C.J. Ewen, E. Hume and K. Rice). In this work, epenthesis is defined as the insertion of a vowel to break up complex consonant clusters into simpler, more manageable syllables. This is often viewed as a ‘repair strategy’ used by the brain when a transition between sounds is too complex to execute quickly.
  • Aichert, I., & Ziegler, W. (2004) Brain and Language 88(1):148-59. Syllable frequency and syllable structure in apraxia of speech. This research highlights that children with Apraxia often struggle specifically with word-onset clusters, leading to distortions like the schwa.
  • Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1992) Phonetica 1992;49(3-4):155-80. Articulatory Phonology: An Overview. This paper explains that fluent speech requires ‘gestural overlap,’ where the movements for two different sounds happen simultaneously. This supports the ‘Best Friends’ method of keeping sounds close together.
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Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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    How do we know our Gestalt Learner is moving to Stage 2?

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding
    Image by Freepik

    Is our student ready to move to NLA 2 (Natural Language Acquisition stage 2)?

    We know that the GLP (Gestalt Language Processor) will move into the next stage when they are ready. But are they now ready you might think? When are they ready? How do I know? If you are not sure whether your child is ready to move forward then go and see your GLP trained Speech Therapist. Together you can work out what the next steps are and how to help your child settle into NLA 2. It’s very exciting!!

    Tip

    The first useful tip: keep a language sample of phrases your child says. This is very helpful!

    You might want to check with your Speech Therapist and offer some language sampling you have taken so they can help you figure out where your child is currently. Always keep an Utterance Journal that you can share with your Speech Therapist and with others who look after your child.

    Basically, we want to listen out for phrases our child says that you or nursery don’t say routinely; that way you can presume that this is not an echo but a mixing together of two chunks of gestalts. Watch out for those coco melon phrases though: double check it really isn’t an NLA 1 gestalt that is copied verbatim from a favourite you tube video.

    You can best support your child best by listening, and thus figuring out what your child is TRYING TO SAY. Often your child might skip over the parts of gestalts they don’t want to say. This is common in older kids who have long gestalts, sometimes even whole episodes or whole stories!

    Try and tease out their shorter mitigations and then focus on practicing and modelling those as they are so much more useful!

    So back to our question: are they ready?

    Are their gestalts covering a variety of situations and contexts?

    Make a note in your journal to see what the backgrounds are to each phrase you ear, so for example:

    • Transitioning: ‘it’s time for the park’ ‘what’s next’ ‘shoes on’
    • Bed Time: ‘we need to wash’ ‘let’s get in (bath/bed)’ ‘ready for our book’
    • Toilet/nappy: ‘we need the potty’ ‘where’s the potty’ ‘let’s wash hands’
    • Mealtime: ‘time to eat’ ‘go get a spoon’ ‘yummy num num’
    • Park/going out: ‘look at the squirrel’ ‘funny doggy’ ‘I wanna swing’
    • At the shops: ‘let’s get the trolley’ ‘lots of veggies’ ‘no tomatoes’ ‘ooh long queue’ ‘back to the car’

    And… does the child use the phrases for a variety of functions?

    • labelling
    • providing information
    • calling out
    • affirming
    • requesting
    • protesting
    • directing

    We need to offer lots of similar language models so that in their own time our children can extract/mitigate useful phrases for what they want to express. The more similar utterances a child hears around him the more he/she can discover the communalities. Once the child has a small range of phrases, he/she can mix them up and create semi-original own phrases.

    If the answer is YES!! our child has perhaps not all but a range of functions and a range of situations where they use a variety of easily mitigable gestalts then yes they are ready for moving to stage 2 of NLA!

    Hurrah!

    Keeping a journal of what your child is saying and in what circumstance is crucial to help with our ongoing detective work!

    Next time I will be looking at how we can help our NLA 2 GLP produce even more of their own mix and match phrases.

    If you need help with your child, please do not hesitate to contact me.

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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  • Speech sound disorders

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding
    Kids Speech Therapist London
    Speech Sound Disorders

    Treatment Approaches – A Typical Session

    There are various great ways to treat speech sound disorders and I use all the approaches available selectively; I decide what works with each individual child and I also vary the approach depending on the child’s frame of mind at any given time during my session.

    Some of the approaches are more “drill-based” and require a child to be able to pay attention and really participate actively in the therapy, and this is what I am showing you today with this video clip.

    My little student here has been working with me for some time and from only saying a handful of words which were not very easy to understand he has come a long way. He does have some features of Verbal Dyspraxia which I shall briefly outline here:

    • Making sounds in general is a struggle, especially when asked to copy certain sounds, example: ‘can you say: a ee ou oo?”
    • Repeating sound sequences or words sequences is hard, for example: “say p-t-k in sequence” or “say fish chips fish chips fish chips
    • When saying the same word again and again, different mistakes can be heard
    • Intonation difficulties: speech sounds monotonous
    • Vocabulary is very limited

    Some therapy approaches are more play based, for example the Core Word method: here we pick a few words at a time which are very significant to the child and therefore highly motivating to try and say. These could be characters of Pokemon or Minecraft for example, or simple words like “GO!”

    When you watch the video you will see that I use a lot of visual prompting, such as showing him where the tongue is moving to or from. I do this with my index finger and this approach is called Tactile Cueing or “Cued Articulation”. Part of the approach is to give a visual prompt and then reduce the prompt as the learner is more able to produce the correct sounds. Once he can produce the sound on its own, we quickly move to the sound within a word.

    I do mix and match my approaches and in fact here I am drilling but I also use the Core Word which for him (YELLOW) — it’s his favourite colour and I happen to have quite a few good games where a YELLOW something or other can be asked for….. WHO KNEW!? 🙂

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

  • ·

    What Is Echolalia And Does It Have A Function? How Can Speech Therapy Help With Echolalia?

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding
    What Is Echolalia And Does It Have A Function? How Can Speech Therapy Help With Echolalia?

    Echolalia is a term used when assessing or treating children with Autism. The term refers to the repetition or echoing of utterances, either our own or others’. It can also be echoing phrases heard on television, advertising jingles or catchy repeat phrases used in tv programmes or nursery rhymes and songs. Whilst we all use echolalia occasionally and it can be observed in typically developing children, we tend not to see/hear it beyond the age of 2.5 years old. Children with ASD, however, do use echolalia often into late childhood.

    There are generally two types of Echolalia:

    Immediate echolalia

    Here the repeated phrases or words are produced immediately after someone has spoken the original words or within two conversational turns of the original utterance.

    Delayed echolalia

    The repeat echoing of the original utterance occurs sometime later, more than two conversational turns or with a much longer time delay. Due to the delay it can be hard to interpret the meaning of the echolalic utterance as it may refer to something that happened long ago and in a different context to the originally utterance.

    (Stiegler, 2015, Fay 1967, Blanc 2014)

    There are other unconventional speech behaviours which include:

    • Perseveration of Speech – persistent repetition of speech
    • Repetitive questioning – persisting even though answers were given
    • Vocalisations such as: humming, whistling, clicking, squealing etc.

    Much research has gone into the meaning and treatment of Echolalia and the following list consists of possible functions that have been identified:

    • Information sharing
    • Responding to answers
    • Labelling
    • Drawing attention to self
    • Protesting
    • Requesting
    • Giving instructions
    • Self-regulation, calming

    (Stiegler 2015, Prizant 1983)

    Echolalia does have a function and is part of the Gestalt Learning Process (where longer units of speech are memorised and then used as a whole without the individual words being meaningful).

    As a Speech and Language Therapist I promote sound and proven Intervention based on the Hanen Programme which helps provide a highly facilitative Interaction Style and I will tell you a bit more in my next blog how the “More Than Words” approach can help children with echolalia move through their Gestalt Learning into more analytic processing of language, grammar and meaning.

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

  • Learn the benefits of Cycles Phonology Approach in Speech Therapy

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding
    A grey, green and orange circle overlaid with Cycles Phonological Approach
    Cycles Phonogogical approach

    When your child attends Speech and Language Therapy, it can look like your child’s therapist is playing. Therapy needs to be fun, which means carrying out therapy through the medium of play. But remember every approach used has evidence behind it. We need to know that therapy will be successful, so an evidence-based approach is essential.

    One of the approaches used for Speech Therapy (i.e., working on speech sound production) is the Cycles Phonology Approach. This approach focuses on the patterns and processes rather than each individual sound. For example, it may be working on final consonant deletion, so the omission of the final sound in words. As Speech and Language Therapists we understand that children can get frustrated and fatigued working on the same sound every day. This approach attempts to solve that. Hodson suggests, the approach is also useful for children with more speech sound errors, as therapists see progress in areas not targeted.

    How does the Cycles Phonology Approach work?

    Your Speech and Language Therapist will assess your child’s speech development and will then analyse the results. They will also look for which sounds they can produce with support (this is called stimulability). They will analyse patterns in the results and will formulate a plan.

    The Cycles Phonology Approach intervention allows your child to work in blocks. This might mean they work for half a week for 30 minutes on (e.g., clusters). Then the next half they’ll work for 30 minutes on a different process (e.g., omission of sounds at the end of words).

    Research has found that the following error patterns respond well to this approach:

    • Syllables (identifying the different parts in a word e.g., “ae-ro-plane”)
    • Final Consonant deletion (omission of the final sound e.g., “ca” instead of “cat”)
    • Initial consonant deletion (omission of the first sound e.g., “at” instead of “cat”)
    • Fronting (instead of making a sound at the back of the mouth, it’s made at the front e.g., “tat” instead of “cat”)
    • Backing (instead of making a sound at the front of the mouth, it’s made at the back e.g., “gun” instead of “bun”)
    • S blends (e.g., “sl, sm, sn, sk, sw”)
    • Gliding of liquids (e.g., “lellow instead of yellow”, “wabbit instead of rabbit”)

    What does a Speech and Language Therapy session look like when using the Phonology Cycles Approach?

    The format of the session remains the same for whichever speech sound pattern your child is working on. Your child’s Speech and Language Therapist will review the previous session. Then they will use an activity to work on your child hearing the sound several times (this is called ‘auditory bombardment’). Then your child will practise saying the sound. Next, the Speech and Language Therapist will check if your child can say any of the sounds which they haven’t been able to produce before, with support. This is called a stimulability check. After this, your child will take part in an activity which builds their awareness of sounds in words (such as a rhyming or syllable activity). The session will finish with another auditory bombardment task (i.e., hearing their tricky sound repeatedly).

    I will give you advice for practising at home, as it’s vital that your child learns in the correct way. We aim for 100 turns in therapy sessions, so it’s vital your child is motivated.

    Contact me to improve your child’s speech sounds and improve their confidence when talking.

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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  • ·

    Explore how Intensive Interaction develops Autistic children’s communication

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding

    Intensive Interaction is an approach that I might suggest for your child. Here is an overview of this approach to increase your knowledge. There are a range of approaches that overlap and having trained in them all I use them all interchangeably to tailor to each child individually. This approach is particularly good for children who work mostly to their own agenda and find it hard to engage with others.

    So, what is Intensive Interaction?

    According to its founder, Hewett (1980), the approach “involves mirroring a person’s actions, sounds and facial expressions.” This allows your child to recognise and form communication between themselves and another, in a fun, play-based setting. Attention and listening are the fundamentals to speech and language development. By using the Intensive Interaction approach, we can increase the time your child can attend for and with another person. We are working towards a child enjoying another person’s presence. We are hoping to make gains with playing together with a child, taking turns and achieving reciprocity. That is the platform which we need to start with to build communication, language, words and perhaps even speech.

    There are many aspects that this approach supports:

    • such as using facial expressions
    • being in the presence of other people
    • having a shared space
    • attending to others
    • recognising and using non-verbal behaviours (e.g., gestures)
    • making sounds/noises (vocalisations) that have meaning
    • and eye contact. Although, we must be careful when suggesting ‘improving’ the use of eye contact. For some individuals making eye contact can be physically painful. So be aware that we are not making our children ‘look’ we are encouraging their natural behaviour.

    Who benefits from Intensive Interaction?

    Children with more complex communication and learning delay can benefit from the Intensive Interaction approach. Each session can be adapted to the needs of the individual and the sessions can be designed to use the whole or part of the approach. It is especially useful for children who are finding it hard to engage in any way socially with another person. Autistic children who tend to work to their own agenda often benefit from this approach.

    How is Intensive Interaction implemented?

    You need to have an environment that your child is comfortable in, and to be able to come down to their level so that you can see each other. This is why I often visit children in their own homes to ensure that they are comfortable and that they can withdraw for periods of time if they need to as well.

    Ensure your child knows you’re there and you are 100% present. This is very important. I would recommend that you put your phone away for some 10 minutes or so and give your undivided attention to your child for that period of time.

    Waiting

    Waiting is very important: we need to give your child time to process what is happening around them. After waiting for a response, you might want to start copying any gestures they use, any facial expressions they make, or perhaps imitate any sounds. You’ll want to continue with this for a few minutes to see if the communication between you and your child changes. Remember always take the cues from your child; if they communicate a message with you, respond. It might be that they are ready to finish and that they’ve shown this by walking away or signing.

    Giving your child a way to respond is vital. We can use visuals to support their communication. We can create ‘yes’ and ‘no’ symbols so they can use them in a functional way.

    A top tip in these sessions is to use mirrors, so that your child can see and begin to recognise their own facial expressions.

    There are other programmes that overlap with Intensive Interaction such as Hanen with following your child’s lead and the Gina Davies Curiosity Programme.

    Now you know a bit about Intensive Interaction, why not book a call to discuss how we can support your Autistic child’s communication using this evidence-based approach.

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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  • Why I love ‘Colourful Semantics’ in speech therapy

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding

    One of the most common concerns parents bring to speech and language therapy is:
    ‘My child understands so much… but they struggle to put sentences together’.

    Some children use only single words.
    Others miss out key parts of sentences.
    Some mix up word order.
    Others find it difficult to answer questions or explain their ideas clearly.

    This is where one of my favourite therapy approaches can be incredibly powerful: Colourful Semantics.

    Colourful Semantics is a highly effective and evidence-informed way of supporting children to build stronger sentence structure, grammar, understanding, and expressive language skills.

    It is a visual approach to language development originally created by a UK Speech and Language Therapist, Alyson Bryan in 1997 to help children understand how sentences are organised.

    Different parts of a sentence are represented by different colours.

    For example:

    • Who? is orange.
    • What doing? is yellow.
    • What? is green.
    • Where? is blue.

    As children progress more colours are added:

    • To Whom? Is pink.
    • Adjectives (what like) is purple.
    • Time Phrase is brown.

    Using colours gives children a visual framework for building sentences in a way that feels structured, predictable, and achievable.

    Instead of language feeling abstract and overwhelming, children can see how sentences fit together.

    For many children, this is massively helpful as it gives structure and predictability.

    Why some children struggle with sentences

    Language development is incredibly complex.

    To build a sentence, we need to:

    • think of vocabulary
    • organise grammar
    • sequence words
    • understand meaning
    • remember sentence structure
    • physically say the words clearly enough to communicate

    That is a huge amount happening all at once.

    Some children may:

    • leave out verbs
    • miss pronouns
    • use immature grammar
    • struggle with word order
    • rely on very short phrases
    • find it difficult to expand beyond single words.

    For example:

    • ‘Boy jump’
    • ‘Him eating’
    • ‘Dog there’
    • ‘Want juice’.

    These children often know more than they can express.

    Colourful Semantics helps bridge that gap.

    Why visual supports matter

    Many children—especially those with language delays, developmental language disorder (DLD), autism, or social communication difficulties—benefit enormously from visual support.

    Visual systems reduce the processing load.

    Instead of relying only on spoken language, children are given an additional way to organise information.

    The colours act almost like ‘anchors’ for language.

    A child may begin to understand:

    • orange = who
    • yellow = action
    • green = object
    • blue = place.

    This makes sentence building more concrete and less overwhelming.

    It also supports children who struggle with:

    • attention
    • auditory memory
    • processing spoken language
    • sequencing
    • confidence using language independently.

    Supporting sentence expansion naturally

    One of the things I love most about Colourful Semantics is how flexible it is.

    It can be used:

    • in play
    • with books
    • during conversation
    • with picture scenes
    • in storytelling
    • during movement activities
    • within everyday routines.

    Therapy does not need to feel rigid or worksheet-heavy.

    Many children who usually avoid talking become much more willing to attempt longer sentences when they feel successful.

    Children often begin to use:

    • verbs more accurately
    • pronouns more consistently
    • better word order
    • improved sentence organisation
    • and more complete ideas.

    For example, instead of:

    • ‘Him running’

    A child may gradually move toward:

    • ‘He is running.’

    The colours help children understand the ‘jobs’ words have within a sentence.

    This is particularly useful for children who need explicit teaching of language structure rather than simply learning through exposure alone.

    Supporting children with speech difficulties too

    One thing I particularly value in therapy is approaches that support multiple communication areas at once.

    Colourful Semantics is excellent for this.

    While building sentences, we can also naturally target:

    • speech sounds
    • intelligibility
    • vocabulary
    • social communication
    • turn-taking
    • attention and listening
    • confidence speaking.

    For example, if a child is working on the /K/ sound, we might intentionally build sentences containing target words:

    • ‘The cat is coming.’
    • ‘The boy is kicking.’
    • ‘The duck is in the box.’

    This allows speech and language goals to work together rather than separately.

    Therapy becomes more functional, meaningful, and engaging.

    Building confidence through success

    One of the biggest barriers many children experience is not simply language difficulty. It is the emotional impact of struggling to communicate.

    Some children become frustrated.
    Others withdraw.
    Some stop attempting longer sentences altogether because communication feels too hard.

    Colourful Semantics can help rebuild confidence because it gives children a clear structure for success. That feeling matters enormously.

    When children feel successful, they participate more.
    They attempt more.
    They communicate more.

    And communication grows through communication.

    Why I use colourful semantics

    There is no single ‘magic’ therapy approach for every child.

    But Colourful Semantics remains one of the most versatile and effective tools I use because it can be adapted so beautifully to individual children.

    It supports:

    • early language
    • grammar
    • sentence structure
    • comprehension
    • expressive language
    • storytelling
    • confidence
    • functional communication.

    Most importantly, it helps children organise language in a way that finally starts to make sense to them.

    And when language starts to make sense, communication can truly begin to flourish.

    Contact me via my contact form if you would like me to work with your child.

    Sonja McGeachie

    Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

    Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

    Reference

    Bryan A (1997) Colourful semantics. In: Chiat S, Law J, and Marshall J (eds) Language disorders in children and adults: psycholinguistic approaches to therapy. London: Whurr, 143–61.

    Health Professions Council registered
    Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists Member
    Member of ASLTIP

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

    3