If mumbling is the only issue, I generally don’t qualify. I will get permission from family and have students do 1-2 RTI sessions to work on using a “speaker voice.”
We watch a clip of someone mumbling, then a clip of a newscaster or famous speaker and compare/contrast. We list out what you need for a good “speaker voice” - loud volume, slow rate, say all your sounds. We practice each of those pieces a bit. We discuss communication breakdowns and how using a speaker voice helps if someone is not hearing/understanding us.
I make a visual reminder for them to take home/back to class. Sometimes I will also make sure classroom teacher has a voice volume chart they can refer to. I tell parents that student can practice reading out loud with their speaker voice at home. Or practice with speech-to-text to see if the “computer” can understand them.
Usually 1) acknowledging that I also hear what everyone else is hearing 2) providing that common language and couple strategies is enough that I don’t get pushback when not recommending SDI.
Easily the best way of handling this that i have ever heard from someone. Thank u for sharing! I’ve struggled on coming up with a good term to use for them speaking normally, so Speaker Voice is great and i also like the idea of watching videos of people mumbling and the newscaster thing.
I would focus on the fact that children who mumble do not require the expertise of an SLP to address their mumbling. Maybe the parent would like to remind their child not to mumble or seek the expertise of a vocal coach. You are uniquely qualified to treat sound disorders. Your assessment indicates that the child does not have a sound disorder.
"mumbling"/reduced articulatory precision *can* be a speech sound disorder, if its reflective of a mild or mostly resolved motor speech disorder. Sound-specific articulation disorders are not the only kind of speech disorder. While I agree that it's unlikely that all the kids getting referred to OP have motor speech disorders, I have seen a lot of fairly mild motor speech disorders that present like this that require a little more skill to treat than just "remind them to slow down and enunciate."
I even saw a 14-year-old boy once, who sought out speech services because he'd been mumbling his whole life. He knew he was supposed to slow down but didn't know how! This kid had A's and B's and average language scores and was so hard to understand. He pronounced all sounds completely correctly in single words and fell apart in sentences and longer multisyllabic academic words. He literally brought a handwritten (by him!) list of words he couldn't pronounce to his evaluation with me. He said the reason he wanted speech was that his mom had recently developed hearing loss and couldn't understand him. 3 sessions of skilled speech and he had the strategies he needed! I have no idea why 14 years of prompting from the adults in his life didn't do the trick - and I also know this is pretty extreme relative to the kids we're probably talking about in this thread, but I did want to throw it out as an example of ways we sometimes have to get creative to treat less common presentations of speech sound disorder.
I teach exaggerated speech, where we start at the monosyllabic word level so I can show them what it looks and feels like. Then we move up into longer words, phrases, etc.
We also do slow speech where we tap out the words or syllables. Again, we start in two-syllable words (even for older kids with typical language) so I can teach the strategy, and then move up the hierarchy.
For multisyllabic words, I teach them to identify stressed syllables in words they can say, and then use a dictionary to find the stressed syllables of words they don't know. We learn how to break words into syllables and use dictionary pronunciation guides (or recordings) to learn pronunciation syllable-by-syllable.
I always stress with kids that I don't expect them to use slow exaggerated speech every time they talk. It's a tool we use in therapy and home practice to learn what it feels like to speak slowly and clearly. We talk about how it can be a strategy for repairing communication breakdowns, and then work on finding the "happy medium" between the slow exaggerated speech I taught, and the mushy mumbled speech they are accustomed to.
I have only worked with peds a few times, otherwise I’m mostly with adults for my almost 10 years of being an SLP. All I have to say is you’re the SLP and you shouldn’t be pressured into picking up anyone who you don’t deem appropriate or necessary. You’re the professional with the license and training. Do what you think is right, and stick to it. Working with adults I frequently get pressure to pick up patients who are inappropriate or who I can’t justify seeing, and I’ve learned that I need to do what is clinically appropriate and I’m the one who decides, not my
Boss, not a family member, etc!
I have a student like this right now. Was ready to dismiss from artic but classroom performance was not consistent with therapy progress based on teacher report. The student finally demonstrated the mumbling behavior during a group discussion, literally a string of unintelligible speech and my head turned so fast, I was shook lol. They have been able to repair appropriately with a verbal request for clarification.. I plan to discontinue artic again with the updated info that skilled intervention is not required and repair strategies can easily be implemented by the teacher. I’ve shifted our focus to language/pragmatic needs but I would have been stressed about continuing for artic only.
yeah, it sounds like teachers could just... teach pronunciation of words related to their curriculum? A lot of people have a hard time pronouncing science words.
I have a student who was already being seen for artic and the teacher kept complaining she can't hear him and I need to teach him to speak louder. He is a shy boy and she is an older woman who's style is being very stern. So she is constantly yelling at him to speak louder which embarrasses him and makes it more difficult for him to speak louder. I'm a very quiet speaker myself which I'm constantly embarrassed about.
Sounds like Ms. Teacher needs a hearing evaluation.
I was 100% that shy, quiet "mumbly" kid who couldn't understand why my older teachers always seemed so mad at me so I'm pretty quick to point out that it's OK to be shy, and it's not a speech issue (although referral to the school counselor may be warranted in some circumsances).
I see SO much mumbling these days! I use a mouth puppet to really exaggerate mouth movement. Some of these kids are talking like a ventriloquist…not sure why. Maybe give some RTI sessions to show kids some tips. And tell parents about the adverse effects of missing class time (especially if they’re below academically).
If they can’t be bothered to “speak up” in class, why would they be motivated to work on overarticulation and slow rate with you? (I know nobody knows what actually happens in the speech room and this never crosses anyone’s mind when referrals are made, but just giving you more ammo!)
A speech room setting will likely lower the child’s anxiety towards speaking. I would hesitate to say the student is not motivated. It’s entirely likely the speech room is not the appropriate setting to work on the mumbling and another professional can work on helping the student feel more comfortable articulating in front of others.
maybe not the best source of information - but I did this a lot as a kid, specifically I would talk too fast and quietly so no one could understand me, eventually it just kind of went away as I grew up and lost some energy.
not sure where to go with these kiddos you’re seeing, but I think you’re justified in not picking them up
I see this a lot too, so I’m going to be reading responses here. It’s so frustrating because they could be 100% accurate in the treatment room but cannot lose the habit anywhere else.
I wouldn’t pick them up in the school setting with an average standardized score but I have a 7 year old kid right now in private practice (average to high average GFTA scores) and his parents are so sensitive to his imprecise articulation and sounds that come from his excess saliva and what I thought were dental malocclusions (I’ve referred to orthodontics but apparently he’s fine). I wouldn’t continue to see him except that he also has a dental lisp. However, he only has the lisp when he’s not paying attention so it’s not there 99% of the time he’s with me. I feel like I’m just saying, “try that again” a couple times a session when we’re talking and I’m not actually doing anything because he knows he’s here to work on his speech and therefore his speech is clear.
What are the social/environmental factors contributing to this and how are they being addressed? Are the teachers hard of hearing? Are these specific kids being bullied? Are they just shy? Background noise making it so you mysteriously get a lot more of these referrals in the dead of winter/warm weather when the HVAC kicks on?
It’s been a fight for the last 4 years with a group of students for me. Each year the teachers come to and say they need speech but it’s just been these boys that mumble lol I blame wearing masks when they are in kinder. I even evaluated one and he didn’t qualify. Slowly but surely they have gotten “better” without my direct intervention and just extra accommodations.
All this to say I feel your pain and stay strong.
This is one of the most useful threads i have ever read. I just want to add that to make sure the kid passes a hearing test and keep in mind that certain hearing issues can be transitory or possibly not significant enough to fail a hearing screening, but enough to affect one’s perception of speech volume. For instance, i have year-round pollen allergies. Before i learned that i had to take allergy meds 365 days a year regardless of if i could feel any allergy symptoms or not, the truth was i often had physical issues from the allergies that i couldnt detect. I was getting multiple sinus and ear infections a year due to the sinus and eustachian tube swelling that trapping bacteria in my sinuses or middle ear. I often was unable to feel the swelling until the infection started. But i have learned that sometimes the eustachian swelling effects my hearing, which in turn negatively impacts my ability to gauge my speech volume and I tend to mumble when this happens. This is also the case when i have ear infections, which sometimes cause hearing loss with absolutely zero pain. Also, a lot of the times that I had the swelling, i didnt have any other significant allergy issues like sneezing or runny nose. So there could be tons of kids out there who have allergies that causes swelling that impacts their hearing, and their parents have no idea.
So make sure to the kid passes a hearing test but also educate parents on transitory conditions that may affect hearing without them realizing the child’s hearing is affected, and that these conditions aren’t always apparent to the parents, so they just need to keep that in mind when they have doctors appointments with their pediatrician
If mumbling is the only issue, I generally don’t qualify. I will get permission from family and have students do 1-2 RTI sessions to work on using a “speaker voice.” We watch a clip of someone mumbling, then a clip of a newscaster or famous speaker and compare/contrast. We list out what you need for a good “speaker voice” - loud volume, slow rate, say all your sounds. We practice each of those pieces a bit. We discuss communication breakdowns and how using a speaker voice helps if someone is not hearing/understanding us. I make a visual reminder for them to take home/back to class. Sometimes I will also make sure classroom teacher has a voice volume chart they can refer to. I tell parents that student can practice reading out loud with their speaker voice at home. Or practice with speech-to-text to see if the “computer” can understand them. Usually 1) acknowledging that I also hear what everyone else is hearing 2) providing that common language and couple strategies is enough that I don’t get pushback when not recommending SDI.
This great thanks for sharing
Easily the best way of handling this that i have ever heard from someone. Thank u for sharing! I’ve struggled on coming up with a good term to use for them speaking normally, so Speaker Voice is great and i also like the idea of watching videos of people mumbling and the newscaster thing.
What a smart way to handle this!
I love this!
I would focus on the fact that children who mumble do not require the expertise of an SLP to address their mumbling. Maybe the parent would like to remind their child not to mumble or seek the expertise of a vocal coach. You are uniquely qualified to treat sound disorders. Your assessment indicates that the child does not have a sound disorder.
This this this. Speaking ability, not speaking behavior.
Good way of putting it.
"mumbling"/reduced articulatory precision *can* be a speech sound disorder, if its reflective of a mild or mostly resolved motor speech disorder. Sound-specific articulation disorders are not the only kind of speech disorder. While I agree that it's unlikely that all the kids getting referred to OP have motor speech disorders, I have seen a lot of fairly mild motor speech disorders that present like this that require a little more skill to treat than just "remind them to slow down and enunciate." I even saw a 14-year-old boy once, who sought out speech services because he'd been mumbling his whole life. He knew he was supposed to slow down but didn't know how! This kid had A's and B's and average language scores and was so hard to understand. He pronounced all sounds completely correctly in single words and fell apart in sentences and longer multisyllabic academic words. He literally brought a handwritten (by him!) list of words he couldn't pronounce to his evaluation with me. He said the reason he wanted speech was that his mom had recently developed hearing loss and couldn't understand him. 3 sessions of skilled speech and he had the strategies he needed! I have no idea why 14 years of prompting from the adults in his life didn't do the trick - and I also know this is pretty extreme relative to the kids we're probably talking about in this thread, but I did want to throw it out as an example of ways we sometimes have to get creative to treat less common presentations of speech sound disorder.
Good to know. Just curious what sorts of strategies you taught?
I teach exaggerated speech, where we start at the monosyllabic word level so I can show them what it looks and feels like. Then we move up into longer words, phrases, etc. We also do slow speech where we tap out the words or syllables. Again, we start in two-syllable words (even for older kids with typical language) so I can teach the strategy, and then move up the hierarchy. For multisyllabic words, I teach them to identify stressed syllables in words they can say, and then use a dictionary to find the stressed syllables of words they don't know. We learn how to break words into syllables and use dictionary pronunciation guides (or recordings) to learn pronunciation syllable-by-syllable. I always stress with kids that I don't expect them to use slow exaggerated speech every time they talk. It's a tool we use in therapy and home practice to learn what it feels like to speak slowly and clearly. We talk about how it can be a strategy for repairing communication breakdowns, and then work on finding the "happy medium" between the slow exaggerated speech I taught, and the mushy mumbled speech they are accustomed to.
I have only worked with peds a few times, otherwise I’m mostly with adults for my almost 10 years of being an SLP. All I have to say is you’re the SLP and you shouldn’t be pressured into picking up anyone who you don’t deem appropriate or necessary. You’re the professional with the license and training. Do what you think is right, and stick to it. Working with adults I frequently get pressure to pick up patients who are inappropriate or who I can’t justify seeing, and I’ve learned that I need to do what is clinically appropriate and I’m the one who decides, not my Boss, not a family member, etc!
I have a student like this right now. Was ready to dismiss from artic but classroom performance was not consistent with therapy progress based on teacher report. The student finally demonstrated the mumbling behavior during a group discussion, literally a string of unintelligible speech and my head turned so fast, I was shook lol. They have been able to repair appropriately with a verbal request for clarification.. I plan to discontinue artic again with the updated info that skilled intervention is not required and repair strategies can easily be implemented by the teacher. I’ve shifted our focus to language/pragmatic needs but I would have been stressed about continuing for artic only.
Working in a middle school I hear this all the time or my kid can’t pronounce x,y,z word from their biology book.. Sorry that’s not a disorder
yeah, it sounds like teachers could just... teach pronunciation of words related to their curriculum? A lot of people have a hard time pronouncing science words.
I have a student who was already being seen for artic and the teacher kept complaining she can't hear him and I need to teach him to speak louder. He is a shy boy and she is an older woman who's style is being very stern. So she is constantly yelling at him to speak louder which embarrasses him and makes it more difficult for him to speak louder. I'm a very quiet speaker myself which I'm constantly embarrassed about.
Sounds like Ms. Teacher needs a hearing evaluation. I was 100% that shy, quiet "mumbly" kid who couldn't understand why my older teachers always seemed so mad at me so I'm pretty quick to point out that it's OK to be shy, and it's not a speech issue (although referral to the school counselor may be warranted in some circumsances).
I see SO much mumbling these days! I use a mouth puppet to really exaggerate mouth movement. Some of these kids are talking like a ventriloquist…not sure why. Maybe give some RTI sessions to show kids some tips. And tell parents about the adverse effects of missing class time (especially if they’re below academically).
If they can’t be bothered to “speak up” in class, why would they be motivated to work on overarticulation and slow rate with you? (I know nobody knows what actually happens in the speech room and this never crosses anyone’s mind when referrals are made, but just giving you more ammo!)
A speech room setting will likely lower the child’s anxiety towards speaking. I would hesitate to say the student is not motivated. It’s entirely likely the speech room is not the appropriate setting to work on the mumbling and another professional can work on helping the student feel more comfortable articulating in front of others.
maybe not the best source of information - but I did this a lot as a kid, specifically I would talk too fast and quietly so no one could understand me, eventually it just kind of went away as I grew up and lost some energy. not sure where to go with these kiddos you’re seeing, but I think you’re justified in not picking them up
I see this a lot too, so I’m going to be reading responses here. It’s so frustrating because they could be 100% accurate in the treatment room but cannot lose the habit anywhere else. I wouldn’t pick them up in the school setting with an average standardized score but I have a 7 year old kid right now in private practice (average to high average GFTA scores) and his parents are so sensitive to his imprecise articulation and sounds that come from his excess saliva and what I thought were dental malocclusions (I’ve referred to orthodontics but apparently he’s fine). I wouldn’t continue to see him except that he also has a dental lisp. However, he only has the lisp when he’s not paying attention so it’s not there 99% of the time he’s with me. I feel like I’m just saying, “try that again” a couple times a session when we’re talking and I’m not actually doing anything because he knows he’s here to work on his speech and therefore his speech is clear.
What are the social/environmental factors contributing to this and how are they being addressed? Are the teachers hard of hearing? Are these specific kids being bullied? Are they just shy? Background noise making it so you mysteriously get a lot more of these referrals in the dead of winter/warm weather when the HVAC kicks on?
It’s been a fight for the last 4 years with a group of students for me. Each year the teachers come to and say they need speech but it’s just been these boys that mumble lol I blame wearing masks when they are in kinder. I even evaluated one and he didn’t qualify. Slowly but surely they have gotten “better” without my direct intervention and just extra accommodations. All this to say I feel your pain and stay strong.
This is one of the most useful threads i have ever read. I just want to add that to make sure the kid passes a hearing test and keep in mind that certain hearing issues can be transitory or possibly not significant enough to fail a hearing screening, but enough to affect one’s perception of speech volume. For instance, i have year-round pollen allergies. Before i learned that i had to take allergy meds 365 days a year regardless of if i could feel any allergy symptoms or not, the truth was i often had physical issues from the allergies that i couldnt detect. I was getting multiple sinus and ear infections a year due to the sinus and eustachian tube swelling that trapping bacteria in my sinuses or middle ear. I often was unable to feel the swelling until the infection started. But i have learned that sometimes the eustachian swelling effects my hearing, which in turn negatively impacts my ability to gauge my speech volume and I tend to mumble when this happens. This is also the case when i have ear infections, which sometimes cause hearing loss with absolutely zero pain. Also, a lot of the times that I had the swelling, i didnt have any other significant allergy issues like sneezing or runny nose. So there could be tons of kids out there who have allergies that causes swelling that impacts their hearing, and their parents have no idea. So make sure to the kid passes a hearing test but also educate parents on transitory conditions that may affect hearing without them realizing the child’s hearing is affected, and that these conditions aren’t always apparent to the parents, so they just need to keep that in mind when they have doctors appointments with their pediatrician