Improving Overall Intelligibility

The Improving Overall Intelligibility program helps students become confident, clear communicators through structured, research-based speech activities.

Improving Overall Intelligibility is a comprehensive program designed to help students with apraxia, imprecise articulation, motor speech disorders, and autism become more easily understood in daily communication. Backed by best-practice methods and current research, this resource focuses on auditory bombardment, self-monitoring, and systematic progression to target speech clarity at the sound, word, and sentence levels.

What makes this speech clarity program so effective?

Early and Late Developing Sounds

Improving Overall Intelligibility is organized into two sections. SLPs and clinicians can base their choice of which developing sounds to target on their diagnostic articulation testing:

• Early Developing Sounds: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /ng/, /m/, /n/, /j/, /h/, /w/
• Late Developing Sounds: /f/, /v/, voiced/voiceless /th/, /l/, /dg/, /ch/, /sh/, /s/, /z/, /r/

Targeted Exercise Tiers

Improving overall intelligibility is difficult, but with the right exercises, it becomes an achievable goal for students. The program is divided into targeted instructional tiers:

Single Consonant Sounds

Tier 1: Teaches single consonant sounds through auditory bombardment using illustrated poems and comprehension/auditory activities. Students who are severely unintelligible will benefit from instruction within every unit of Tier 1. Other students may need instruction in only a few of these units. 

Blended Sounds

Tier 2: Students learn the subtleties of blended sounds using auditory bombardment in these exercises. Choose the sounds that most impact student's intelligibility. Blended and single consonant sounds are targeted in an illustrated poem and exercises designed to improve comprehension and auditory skills.

Word Position

Tier 3: Focuses on word position with 12 pictured words per target sound (initial, medial, final), moving from phrases to isolated sounds. Since research has shown that children focus on learning to say words as whole units (Velleman & Vehan, 2002), this tier begins by teaching the target sound in phrases. It systematically narrows the instructional focus to the word, syllable, and isolated sound.

Rate, Quality, Pitch, and Volume

Rate, quality, pitch, and volume are key features which can impact overall intelligibility (Mefferd & Green, 2010). The exercises in this unit are designed to improve these characteristics and are used at any time during the program.

Carryover Activities 

Carryover, an important and often most difficult step to master, is critical for dismissal for therapy. There are four carryover activities at the end of the Early Developing and Later Developing Sounds sections. These activities review all of the sounds in their respective section and target them in the initial, medial, and final word positions and in consonant clusters. All the activities are designed to help students achieve intelligibility in connected speech and include:

• Picture scene ( in colour)
  
• Scene-related page, varying in language difficulty, which includes types of questions from:
  
  • Wh-
    
  • Category
    
  • Inference
    
  • Compare/contrast
    
  • Paraphrasing
    
  • Problem-solving
    
  • Social communication
    
  • Sequencing
    
• List of target words
  
• Answer key

Why this learning approach works so well:

• Auditory bombardment is a proven method for enhancing sound awareness and production.
• Progressive instructional design allows students to build on successes and refine clarity step by step.
• Visual supports, picture scenes, and structured questions promote carryover and real-world application.
• Adaptable to individual student needs based on diagnostic articulation testing.
• Targets phrases, words, syllables, and sounds, progressing from broad to specific instruction.
• Includes activities to improve comprehension, social communication, and higher-level language skills.

Who is Improving Overall Intelligibility helpful for?

This program targets speech clarity and intelligibility in students in grades prekindergarten to grade 7. Improving Overall Intelligibility is an educational resource for Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) and clinicians working to reduce students' frustration with not being understood.

Improving Overall Intelligibility includes:

• 197 black & white pages
• 86 full-color printable pages

©2014