Teddy Talker: A Sensory Approach to Speech Sound Acquisition

The Teddy Talker™ program is a multi-sensory approach to speech sound acquisition created by Linda Siciliano to promote phonics and early sound production in young children by stimulating auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning.  This program aids children in grasping mouth movements for sound production through engaging visuals and rhymes, fostering successful articulation. I received a free kit suitable for both individual and group therapy, allowing me to introduce you to this program effectively.

Teddy Talker Contents

The Teach Together Toolkit allows me to create programming specific to each of my clients, which I can send home for carryover practice and instruction. These folders may contain some of the following:

• Background information about the Teddy Talker program
• Bear face and lips for coloring
• Teddy’s tongue, teeth, and paper bag for modeling accurate placement
• Teddy Talker™ Alphabet chart
• Sound Assessment summary
  
  

Personalizing Teddy Talker

In my opinion, one of the most important products in the Teddy Talker program are the visual instructions. Since home practice supports speech sound acquisition progress, I send a blank Teddy face home with coloring instructions. I want my young clients to have some ownership for the program, which is why I instruct caregivers that scribbles or even a single line across the bear’s face are permissible. In addition to the teddy bear face, families need a sheet of various mouth visuals. It is important to be able to see these visuals clearly, so I have parents color the mouth pictures. After coloring, families return papers to my office for lamination and adding Velcro, allowing us to change Teddy’s face for sounds.

The colored alphabet chart pictured below came from the resource section of the Toolkit. I got a large, laminated copy for a visually challenged client. The alphabet chart is perfect for introducing speech sound targets.

Each child’s folder may also contain a consonant and vowel checklist for baseline collection to establish targets for programming.  As a parent, you may want to see your child’s progress and this checklist is a great way to track gains. 

Bear Tracks Card Deck

Besides the Toolkit, I was provided a Bear Tracks card deck, which would be a great resource for home practice! I use mine with children as young as 2.5 years old to assess strengths and needs in determining therapy programming. The card deck includes instructions for game play that your child may enjoy, so be sure to ask your speech pathologist if this would be a good investment.

Worksheets

My approach with Teddy Talker™ involves selecting a suitable speech sound target, then copying relevant tool pages for weekly practice. The Toolkit offers 13 adaptable tool pages for any speech sound and various activities such as drawing, coloring, writing, and listening. There are two types of worksheets in the Toolkit:  target pages and generic tool pages.  For my purposes, I started with the target pages using the following:

• Build and Say:  tells you which lips to Velcro onto Teddy’s mouth and provides detailed sound cues
• See and say:  focuses on Teddy’s face
• Trace and say:  introduces muscle memory for target letters with one inch, bold faced capital and lower case letters
• Rhyme and say:  great rhymes describing how to make target sounds

I’ve successfully used this program with children aged 2.5 to 6, addressing a range of speech delays, from mild articulation challenges to pre-verbal.

Below are pictures of some supplements in my speech materials collection that I have added to the program.  I believe that using a mix of materials helps generalize speech sound practice outside of the Teddy Talker program. I hope that this review helped share more information about this dynamic program created by a speech pathologist to make our lives easier! Happy talking!!

A to Z Coloring pages purchased on TpT from Lavinia Pop titled:  Letter of the Week

Free bear rhyme from my local library about body parts on a bear

Target dollar spot puzzles and Good-Night Owl book. Both include animal sounds.