Home Practice: Final Consonant Deletion
Does your little one frequently leave off the last sound of words?
Maybe they say “ca” for “cat” or “ba” for “ball”. This is a phonological process called final consonant deletion and it typically resolves naturally by a child’s 3rd birthday. In other words, 3 year olds and older should be making the last sound in words consistently. If your child is 3 or older and leaves off the last sound in words, give us a call for a free consultation! It’s probably time for a speech therapy evaluation.
What can we start working on at home?
Depending on your child’s temperament, it might be a good idea to start drawing their attention to that missing sound at the end of words. The easiest way to do this is to use two words that sound the same except for that final consonant (like “bye” and “bike”) to draw your child’s attention to the missing sound. The two words that sound the same but differ by one sound are called a minimal pair. Speech therapists have developed many wordlists for all kinds of minimal pairs. If you google final consonant deletion minimal pairs you’ll find many examples to use. Here is one of my favorite resources by The SLP Solution: https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/final-consonant-deletion/. If you scroll down on this page she has a lot of free resources.
Sometimes it can turn into a silly game when you can laugh together about these minimal pairs. If you child says “I want to bye” and you know they meant “I want to bike”, take a moment to laugh together and say “You want to bye! Bye?! Ok bye bye! Where are you going?” Then model the correct production “ohh, you want to bike! Oh of course we love to get on our bikes and go for a ride. Bike bike bike, not bye!” Be sure to emphasize the “k” sound at the end of the word, and always remember to keep this in the fun zone. We do not want to hurt the child’s feelings with this activity. You know your child best and you know the most sensitive way to catch their attention.
Remember your job as a caregiver
The most important thing about home practice is to make sure communication is fun and stress free. If your little one is getting frustrated, just toss the activity. Let the speech therapist do the hard parts of speech training during your session. It’s so important that your little one feels connection while talking to you. Avoid pointing out their errors and just enjoy communicating with each other!
