4 Minimal Pairs Activities for Your Speech Therapy Sessions – Free Download

Minimal Pairs is a speech therapy intervention to use with young children with speech sound disorders. This treatment is best suited for children with mild to moderate phonological-based impairments and consistent errors patterns (Crosbie et al., 2005). Instead of targeting a specific sound, minimal pairs therapy contrasts words that are similar but differ by a phoneme or feature.

When implementing meaningful minimal pairs, you will spend time familiarizing students with the words, checking to make sure that they hear the difference in the two words, then practicing (McLeod & Baker, 2017). Typically you would pick 5 word pairs to target in a session using sounds that the child is stimulable for.

So how do we make this therapy technique FUN while practicing the same few words over and over? I've got 5 ideas for you!

1. Roll & Color Activities

I don't know about you, but most of my students always loved to color. These seasonal roll and color activities are perfect for just that and getting in lots of productions! Each number on a dice correlates to a minimal pair set, so students can practice it for every space they color.

2. Say & Dot

Dot pages are usually super engaging for kids, but I also like them because they are versatile! You can cover the spaces by using dot markers, crayons, markers, mini objects or erasers, pom poms, or add a page protector and use dry erase! The possibilities are endless, which makes it easy to adapt to your students' needs. You can have them dot as they practice to say each word or to identify the word you are saying.

3. Tracing

Who doesn't like to add a little fine motor work to their sessions? These tracing pages are awesome for perception or production tasks. For identifying, you can have them find the correct word you say, glue it, draw the line, to the next word you say. For production, they can practice saying one word while tracing with their finger, then practice the other with their crayon. You can even go over it multiple times or use dry erase markers in a page protector for lots of trials.

4. Board Games

Board games are a great fallback when you are short on planning or prep time! You can grab any board game off your shelf and pair it with word cards, or grab something like this that has everything you need. Students can practice a number of times before they take their turn, or let the dice/spinner decide how many times they produce the words to shake things up a bit.

Want to try out a couple of these? Just enter your email below and they will be on their way to your inbox!

References:

• Crosbie, S., Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (2005). Intervention for children with severe speech disorder: A comparison of two approaches. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 40, 467-491.
• McLeod, S., & Baker, E. (2016). Children's speech: An evidence-based approach to assessment and intervention. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.