Goal: Improve Overall Intelligibility by Decreasing Mumbling
Sample Goal:
During five minutes of unstructured conversation in the natural setting, Student will achieve a 4 or higher on the following intelligibility rubric as evaluated by the speech-language pathologist on three consecutive data collection days.
5 = Almost everything the student said was easily understood
4 = Much of what the student said was easily understood
3 = About half of what the student said was easily understood
2 = Less than half of what the student said was easily understood
1 = Most of what the student said was hard to understand
Download the No-Prep Therapy Kit:
We have a start-to-finish therapy kit that will give you everything you need to practice this skill in therapy and send home homework. Click the packet below to open it. Then, print it out and place it in the child’s notebook or binder.
Therapy Phases:
- Over-articulate in Words: Student will properly and precisely pronounce every sound in 80% of single words.
- Over-articulate in Phrases: Student will properly and precisely pronounce every sound in 80% of 2-3 word phrases.
- Over-articulate in Sentences: Student will properly and precisely pronounce every sound in 80% of short sentences.
- Over-articulate in Structured Conversation: Student will achieve a 4 or higher on the above rubric (see sample goal) during structured conversation tasks (like answering open-ended questions) on 3 consecutive data collection days.
- Over-articulate when Signaled: Student will overarticulate (properly and precisely pronounce every sound) in conversation when he receives a visual signal from the therapist on 80% of opportunities.
- Identify Signs of Conversational Breakdown: Student will list 3 ways to know that there has been a conversational breakdown and the other person isn’t following the conversation.
- Over-articulate During Conversational Breakdown: Student will overarticulate (properly and precisely pronounce every sound) in conversation when his conversational partner shows signs of conversational breakdown.
What’s Next?
- From here, you can work with the parents or educators to make sure this skill continues to carry-over and generalize into conversations throughout the child’s day.
Supplemental Materials
Here are some other resources that may help you when working on this skill:
How to Stop Mumbling Worksheet
Step-by-step instructions on how to cure mumbling. Includes sample IEP goals as well as places to collect data on each step of the way.
Speaking Clearly Practice Worksheet
Use this to help a child practice over-articulating and speaking clearly in conversation (help for mumblers).
