TECH ASSISTANT
SEE THE SOUND/VISUAL PHONICS:
A MULTISENSORY & INTERMODAL
TOOL FOR THE SLP
Dave Krupke, M.A. CCC/SLP
See The Sound/Visual Phonics
Resource Specialist & Trainer
Iowa Conference on Communicative
Disorders
April 8, 2016
Everything should be made
as simple as possible, but
not simpler.
Albert Einstein
MORE IS LESS . . . HOW CAN THAT BE???
When there is:
Congruency
Association/connectedness
Intermodality
Utility
of inputs
BRAIN RULES – JOHN MEDINA
Sensory processes are wired to work
together. One sensory system gets a
boost when another sensory system is
involved
 Multiple cues dished up via different
senses enhance learning. They speed up
responses, increase accuracy, improve
stimulation detection, and enrich coding
at the moment of learning.

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FROM A USER’S GUIDE TO THE BRAIN
JOHN RATEY

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Experiences, thoughts, actions and emotions
actually change the structure of our brains.
Mounting evidence shows that movement is
critical to every other brain function, including
memory, emotion, language, and learning.
Neurologists have found evidence that the
cerebellum, which coordinates physical
movement, also coordinates the movement of
thoughts.
While a lot of brain talk has concerned
the interaction between the right and left
hemispheres, Ratey states that we really
should be thinking more of the
interaction between the front and the
back of the brain – the sensory and
motor divisions.
Neurons
that fire
together wire together

Donald Hebb, Canadian Neuropsychologist, 1949


The cerebellum is very much involved with the
integration of information and the timeliness
with which the information gets processed –
all crucial to thinking, learning, and memory.
The brain circuits used to order, sequence,
and time a mental act . . . the prefrontal and
frontal cortex, are the same ones used to
order, sequence, and time a physical act.
LEARNING AND THE BRAIN
Accurate storage leads to accurate
retrieval
 Movement is the only thing that unites
all brain levels and integrates the right
and left hemispheres of young learners
 Neuroscientists have discovered that the
brain’s cerebellum, involved in most
learning, operates at a high capacity
during times of movement.

HOW DOES INFORMATION GET
INTO OUR BRAINS?
Auditory – hearing/perception
 Visual – seeing/perception
 Kinesthetic/Tactile – movement &
touch
 Proprioception – awareness of where
body parts are in space

2
TYPES OF CUES/PROMPTS




Auditory
Verbal
OF WHAT WE KNOW WE LEARN
Approximately . . .
10% through hearing
Visual
Tactile/Kinesthetic
83% through sight
LEARNING RETENTION RATES
OF WHAT WE LEARN WE RETAIN
10%
20%
 30%
 50%
 70%
 90%


of
of
of
of
of
of
what we Read
what we Hear
what we See
what we Hear & See
what we Say
what we Say As We Do

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
Lecture
Reading
Audio-Visual (video)
Demonstration
Discussion Group
Practice by Doing
Teaching Others
adapted from the work of Edgar Dale
5%
10%
20%
30%
50%
75%
90%
GESTURAL SYSTEMS FOR MEANING
Communication requires
a common code that is
“congruent”




Sign Language – concept meaning
Finger Spelling – alphabet letters
Cued Speech – sound by syllables
Visual Phonics - phonemes
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A CLOSER LOOK AT GESTURES



Gesture use can be beneficial for memory and
recall (McNeill, 1985; Goldin-Meadow &
Wagner, 2005; Wagner-Cook, Kuang Yi-Yip &
Goldin-Meadow, 2010)
Gesture and speech are part of the same
system in the brain (Kelly et al., 2008; McNeil,
1985)
It is suggested that Broca’s area integrates
speech and gesture to make them an
integrated system (Kelly et al, 2008)
SPEECH-GESTURE CONNECTION




McNeil, 1985
MIRROR NEURONS

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Mirror neurons are a type of brain cell that respond
equally when we perform an action and when we
witness someone else perform the same action
(American Psychological Association, 2005)
Mirror neurons are active during the execution of
actions as well as during observation of someone else
performing an action (Nishitani et al., 2005)
Nishitani et al. propose that when an action is
performed and the mirror neurons are active, they not
only react, but become part of the system that forms
neuronal representation of the action – the gestural
representation is not discarded
Gestures have semantic and pragmatic
functions that parallel those of speech
Gestures are synchronized with linguistic units
of speech
Gesture dissolves together with speech in
aphasia
Gestures develop together with speech in
children
VISUAL PHONICS VS. CUED SPEECH
Visual Phonics



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Developed as a set of visual
cues; not a communication
system
45 hand shapes (1 for each
English sound) that show the
way a sound is produced
Also has graphic symbols
Cues provided for each
sound
Main goal: Make speech and
reading visual
Cued Speech





Developed as a receptive
visual aid
8 consonant hand shapes; 4
vowel hand positions;
dipthongs combine 2
positions; coupled with lip
movements
No graphic symbols
Cues provided for each
syllable
Main goal: Make speech visual
From Veale, Smitley & Anthony, ASHA Presentation, 2009
WHAT IS SEE THE SOUND/VISUAL
PHONICS?




Multi-sensory technique for teaching sound
awareness & production, and the sound-letter
connection
Consists of a handshape and a written symbol that
depicts each of the 45 speech sounds of English
Mimics what the mouth, teeth, and tongue are
doing when sound is produced
The sound, handshape, and written symbol
facilitate a multi-sensory connection between
alphabet letters and their corresponding sounds
4
WHY VISUAL PHONICS WORKS


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VP integrates visual, kinesthetic, and
auditory support for the sound-letter
connections – it provides a visual and
kinesthetic “bridge” to sound for speech,
reading and spelling
VP bombards all learning modes – highly
compatible with brain-based learning and
learning channels
VP involves muscle memory – very powerful
for children
Mirror neurons – gesture effect?
APPLYING VISUAL PHONICS TO
COMMUNICATION DISORDERS

Articulation/Phonological Disorders






of specific sound
of sound location
 Differentiation of sound order

retrieval – a visual/kinesthetic addition
to a phonemic cue
Acquired Apraxia
 Ability
to regain motor speech patterns
to produce target sounds and with
closer approximation or accuracy
 Ability
markers
 Pronoun
 Regular
Voicing Errors
Vowel Errors
 Word
 Structure
markers
 -ed (“T”, “D”, “ED”)
 Awareness
Aphasia
Language
 -s
 Differentiation

VP helps children distinguish the
difference between a target sound and a
substituted sound. Children know what
they are saying and what you want them
to say.
VP helps children become aware of
omitted sounds and where specific sounds
should occur
VP is a flexible strategy – the student is
given as much or as little of what is
needed to facilitate sound productions or
to connect sound and letters
 How
errors
and irregular plurals
they sound/how they look
 Irregular
 How

past tense
they sound/how they look
Apraxia
 Sound
production accuracy
words
 Vowel distortions
 Phonemic & phonological awareness
 Multisyllabic
 Sound
location
order
 Syllable sense
 Sound
5


DHH/CI
Accent Modification
 Sound
awareness
 Sound
production
 Consonants,
 Vowels,
 Sound
awareness
production
 Language structures
 Word pronunciation
 Sound
 Consonants,
 Vowels,
consonant digraphs
vowel digraphs
 Language
structures
 Morphology
 Word
pronunciation
 Syllable
ANECDOTAL PRACTICE-BASED DATA

consonant digraphs
vowel digraphs
The 3 slides that follow are examples of data
gathered by SLPs with school-age children,
preschool children, and data on a dynamic shift
in imitation responsiveness with a child with
ASD.
emphasis
RESPONSE TO VP CUES
IMITATION BEHAVIORS IN A
SEVERE AUTISTIC STUDENT
PK SPEECH DATA
100
90
80
70
60
/d/
50
/t/
/p/
/b/
40
/s/
30
20
10
0
3/1/2011
3/22/2011
4/12/2011
5/3/2011
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RESEARCH STUDIES
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From 1986 to the present there have been:
60 published and unpublished studies that
have been found
12 studies conducted by SLPs on Visual
Phonics implementation with articulation,
apraxia (child and adult), phonological
processes and accent modification
6 studies on literacy skills (phonological
awareness, phonemic awareness, or decoding).
For most children, the first experiences with
letters and words dictate how the brain
establishes neural networks that become
habitual pathways as reading skills develop
(Herron, 2008)
Primary processes that drive reading include
our ability to associate print units (letters,
letter combinations, letter sequences, words,
and punctuation marks) with linguistic units
(phonemes, onsets, rimes, syllables,
morphemes, words and phrases). Moats, 2000)
Good language skills & abilities help
decoding improve but the opposite is
not true (Petersen & Spencer, 2016)
 Comprehension is not consistently
linked to oral reading fluency – 45% of
children have difficulty with
comprehension while only 5% have
difficulty with reading rate (Petersen &
Spencer, 2016)

LITERACY: SPEECH-TO-PRINT
PERSPECTIVE
The foundation of reading is speech and
the organization of reading skills in the
brain must be built of this foundation.
(Herron, 2008)
 The sight of a word triggers its
pronunciation – “our lips may not be
moving when we read but our brains are
talking.”
(Ehri, 2002)

THOUGHTS ON LITERACY
One of the keys to early literacy skills is
the strong and stable association of
sounds and letters
 Letter name knowledge by itself will not
help children read
 Sound Mapping enables and facilitates
decoding and encoding

ANECDOTAL READING DATA

The following slides illustrate student
performance following implementation of
Visual Phonics . Data reflects, district, grade
and individual data sets.
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WEEKLY NONSENSE WORD
FLUENCY PROBES
DIBELS INITIAL SOUND FLUENCY - K

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VISUAL PHONICS, SLP & LITERACY
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Our role in literacy?
How does Visual Phonics fit in?
1st grade Special
Ed Student
This student has
major reading
problems and VP
is beginning to
make a
difference.
Visual Phonics
implementation
began on Feb 8,
2010
VP INTERVENTION FOR LITERACY
TINA K. VEALE, PH.D, JEAN SMITLEY, M.S., ANGELA ANTHONY, PH.D.,
ASHA, 2009

Early Literacy
Rhyming
 Segmenting
 Blending
 Deleting
 Initial Sounds


Beginning Readers
Sight word recognition
Decoding
 Phonics



Spelling Development

Word features
Initial/final consonants
Short/long vowels
 Digraphs & blends

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8
ASHA POSITION STATEMENT 2001

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The American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association’s (ASHA) position statement on
literacy states:
Speech-language pathologists play a critical
role in the development of literacy for children
and adolescents with communication
disorders.
SLPs also make a contribution to the literacy
efforts of a school district or community on
behalf of other children and adolescents.
Visual Phonics is an effective strategy/tool
for the speech-language pathologist
VP represents all sounds of English
VP makes sound visible and concrete
 VP facilitates the acquisition of language
structures and basic language concepts
 VP facilitates phonological & phonemic
awareness
 VP promotes foundational skills for early
literacy, reading and writing

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Show that STS/VP has utility and effectiveness
Research that shows a lasting effect
Research that shows benefit for both struggling
and non-struggling students
Research that looks at the utility and effectiveness
with speech & language problems – all ages
Research with ELL students/adults
Research with experimental and control groups
Research with single subject multiple baseline
design
A multi-tiered approach to providing instruction,
services, and interventions at increasing levels of
intensity to struggling learners (Judy Rudebusch)
Helps to differentiate between “instructionally
disabled” and “learning disabled” learners
Involves classroom teachers, special education
teachers, and specialists in a collaborative manner
Three tiers (Linguisystems Guide to RTI)



SUMMARY


RTI - MTSS
Core Instruction
Targeted Group Intervention
Intensive, Individual Intervention
RESEARCH NEEDS
TINA K. VEALE, PH.D, JEAN SMITLEY, M.S., ANGELA ANTHONY,
PH.D., ASHA, 2009

Ongoing research is necessary to establish the
effectiveness of See the Sound/Visual Phonics
as a therapeutic tool and as a literacy strategy
 In various populations
 To augment various therapy techniques
 Optimal time period for implementation
 Specific method of implementation
 Hand
shape cues vs. written symbols or both
Further information on Visual Phonics
and other aspects of teaching & learning
can be found at:
Sound Principles for Literacy
http://soundprinciples4literacy.com
9
CONTACT INFORMATION
For information on Visual Phonics
training:
Dave Krupke, M.A. CCC/SLP
Assistant Clinical Professor
Master of Speech-Language Pathology Program
St. Ambrose University
518 W. Locust Street
Davenport IA 52803
krupkedavidl@sau.edu
563-333-3921
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