31+ Articulation Goals for Speech Therapy (Goal Bank)

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I’m excited to share with you today my articulation goals, which are an essential part of the speech therapy progress for those wanting to improve their articulation skills.

The speech goals I’ve outlined below involve addressing specific phonemes, or speech sounds, that an individual has difficulty pronouncing. The goal is to help your student or client to develop clear and intelligible speech.

You as the Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) play a crucial role in identifying, assessing, and creating personalized articulation goals for individuals with speech disorders.

It is important to keep in mind that articulation disorders are when a student has difficulty with a specific consonant or vowel sound, unlike phonological disorders which are when the student is having broader issues affecting whole words or phrases.

By working closely with an SLP, individuals can receive tailored therapeutic approaches, such as auditory and tactile cueing or modeling techniques, to address their unique articulation needs.

As your students make progress, articulation goals should be adjusted to continually demonstrate growth and improvement in your student’s speech sound production.

Key Takeaways

Articulation goals are essential in speech therapy for addressing specific speech sound difficulties.
Speech-language pathologists create personalized goals and therapeutic approaches for individuals with articulation disorders.
Progress towards articulation goals is continually assessed and adjusted to promote growth in speech sound production.

Understanding Articulation Goals

The First Step

Before diving into articulation goals, you should understand the first step in articulation therapy.

It’s essential to identify the sounds or phonemes with which the person has difficulty.
By assessing these challenges, the speech therapist can develop tailored goals to help the individual work on their specific articulation needs.
A great starting point would be to use a standardized test, such as the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation or another articulation test or screener as a great way to determine which sounds the student is struggling with and where to begin therapy.
In the initial phase of therapy, the ability to make sounds correctly at the word level in different word positions (initial position, medial position, or final position) is crucial, as it establishes the groundwork for developing accurate speech articulation.

Purpose of Articulation Goals

The purpose of articulation goals is to improve communication skills for individuals who face challenges in pronouncing words or sounds. These goals are what help guide your students’ speech therapy sessions to ensure the student or client actually makes progress toward their articulation skills.

When creating articulation goals, speech therapists should consider various aspects, such as the phonemes involved, the position of the sounds within words (initial, medial, or final), and the student’s age-appropriateness to be working on those particular goals.

Articulation goals usually include:

Targeting specific sounds at the phonemic level, word level, phrase level, sentence level, reading level, and conversational level
Increasing accuracy in producing the target sound
Enhancing the intelligibility of the individual’s speech
Encouraging self-monitoring and self-correction during conversations

The success of articulation therapy relies on consistent practice, feedback, and the development of personalized goals that best address the student’s unique needs.

The Role of Speech-Language Pathologists

Best Practice

As a speech language pathologist (SLP), your primary focus is on implementing a best practice approach to treat articulation disorders. This approach involves prevention, identification, assessment, intervention, monitoring, and follow-up of speech sound disorders. By staying up-to-date with current research and utilizing evidence-based practices, you can ensure that your clients receive the most effective treatment possible.

Your best practice should involve:

Collaborating with other professionals, such as teachers and special education staff, to provide comprehensive care and support
Individualizing treatment plans that cater to the specific needs and abilities of each client
Monitoring progress and adjusting treatment plans as needed to optimize outcomes

Treatment Plans

Developing a well-structured treatment plan is essential for how we can best address our student’s articulation goals. As an SLP, we need to create individualized treatment plans that cater to the unique needs of your clients and students.

An effective treatment plan should:

Assess the client’s needs: Begin by conducting a thorough evaluation, noting the client’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This will help you identify the specific speech sounds they have difficulty with, as well as any underlying issues causing these difficulties.
Set clear goals: Establish specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for the client. These goals should focus on improving the problematic speech sounds and their overall articulation abilities.
Select appropriate interventions: Choose evidence-based interventions that have been proven effective for similar clients and issues. These may include articulation drills or different levels of modeling or prompting.
Monitor progress: Regularly assess the client’s progress using objective data collected during therapy sessions. This will help you determine if the interventions are working and make any necessary adjustments to the treatment plan.
Communicate with caregivers: It’s important to keep caregivers informed about the client’s progress, and provide them with information and resources to support the client’s speech sound development at home.

By following best practices and designing tailored treatment plans for your clients, you can confidently and effectively address your students or clients’ articulation goals.

Depending on the standardized test results, screenings, language samples, and parent or guardian information therapy may be articulation-focused, phonological-focused, or a combination of both.

This will depend on the individual student or client and based on their testing results.

The following information focuses on an articulation focused therapy plan.

4 Types of Articulation Disorders

Speech Sounds

Articulation disorders can be characterized by difficulties in producing specific speech sounds.

Children struggling with this type of disorder may have trouble with certain consonants or vowels.

It’s essential to identify and address these issues early on, as they can impact a child’s overall speech and communication abilities.

Examples of speech sound challenges are mispronouncing any of the following sounds /p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, m, n, w, r, l, s, z, ch, sh, th, j, h, zh, ng, y/.

Substitution – Is when a sound is substituted with another sound. For example, when /r/ sound is substituted with the /w/ sound, such as “wed” for “red” or “wing” for “ring”.

Distortion – A distortion is when the sound is not exactly like the natural sound within a word, such as a lateral or interdental lisp of the /s/ or /z/ sound.
- Lateral Lisp – A lateral lisp or lateral distortion happens when air escapes out the sides of your teeth. To help reduce a lateral lisp encourage your client or student to place the sides of their tongue against the upper side of their teeth to allow the passage of air to go down the center of the tongue instead of out the sides of the teeth. The lateral lisp sounds like a “slushy” s sound.
- Interdental List or Frontal List – An interdental lisp or frontal lisp happens when the tongue protrudes between the front teeth. This causes the s and z sound to be produced as the /th/ sound. The word ‘sleep’ is then pronounced as ‘theep’.

Omission – Is when a sound is deleted or omitted from a word. For example, “pot” for “spot” by deleting the /s/ sound from the word.

Addition – Is when a sound is added to a word. For example, adding the sound /p/ in “hampster” for “hamster”.

Phonological Processes

It is important to note that phonological processes refer to the patterns of speech errors observed in children that are rule-based and predictable errors.

Instead of articulation errors of individual sounds these patterns involve a systematic simplification of more than one sound, such as:

Fronting: Substituting a sound made in the front of the mouth for a back sound. For example, when the /k/ or /g/ back sounds are substituted for the front sounds /t/ or /d/, such as “tan” for “can” or “dough” for “go”.
Stopping: Replacing a continuous fricative sound with a stop sound. For example, replacing /s/ or /f/ with /t/ or /p/ as in “tea” for “sea” or “pan” for “fan”. For more resources on the phonological process of stopping be sure to check out our list of over 31 free stopping activities.
Cluster Reduction: This is when a consonant cluster, which is 2 or 3 consonants occurring in a sequence in a word (sp in spot) or (st in stop) is reduced to a single consonant through deletion. For example, “pider” for “spider” or “top” for “stop”.
Final Consonants Deletion: The phonological process of final consonant deletion is when the final consonant sound is omitted or deleted. For example, the word “road” would become “row”

However, identifying and addressing these phonological processes can help improve a child’s overall speech and articulation abilities.

*Get our complete list of phonological processes here.

Therapeutic Approaches to Articulation Goals

Auditory Bombardment

Auditory bombardment is when the speech pathologist says a list of words containing the sound(s) the student is working on. This allows the child to hear the correct pronunciation of their sound or sounds.

For example, if the student was working on the /t/ sound the therapist would read a list of words containing the /t/ sound for the child to be exposed to the correct production of that sound.

When working with young children you could also send a list of words home for different family members to read the list of words aloud to provide the child with even more auditory bombardment at home.

Isolation Level

The Isolation level is when the specific sound is produced at just the sound level. For example, if the student is working on the /b/ sound then they would practice saying /b/.

Syllable Level

The syllable level is when the specific sound is produced at just the syllable level. For example, if the student is working on the /f/ sound then they would practice the syllable “fa-” in the word “fa-ther”.

Word Level

The word level is when the specific sound is produced in single words. For example, if the student is working on the /v/ sound they would practice the words “van”, “vroom”, “vest”.

Phrase Level

The phrase level is when the specific sound is produced in a phrase. For example, if the student was working on the /k/ sound they could practice the phrase, “fast cat” or “orange cat”.

Sentence Level

The sentence level is when the specific sound is produced in a sentence. For example, if the student was working on the /p/ sound they could practice the sentence, “The pancake is fluffy.” or “The pen has black ink.”

Reading Level

The reading level is when the child is given a reading passage or short story and produces their different articulation sounds while reading.

Functional Communication

A primary goal of articulation therapy is to improve functional communication, which refers to your ability to convey thoughts and ideas effectively in various daily situations.

Incorporating functional communication activities within your therapy sessions can boost your students’ confidence and motivation to apply their newly acquired speech skills in real-life contexts.

Examples of functional speech tasks include role-playing, using targeted sounds in socially relevant conversations, and practicing greetings or introductions.

Language Tasks

Incorporating expressive language tasks into your articulation therapy sessions can enhance your student’s ability to target their speech sound goals.

You may work on activities such as storytelling, sentence building, and word formations.

Utilize age-appropriate materials and engage in conversations that are meaningful and motivating for the client.

By doing so, you can actively practice targeted sounds while simultaneously addressing your student’s language therapy, vocabulary words, and overall communication.

Speech Therapy Goals

School Setting

In the school setting, speech and language therapists will work closely with the student’s classroom teachers, staff, and parents to support the student’s communication needs.

In order to address the diverse requirements of students with different backgrounds and abilities, it is essential to establish clear, concise, and achievable goals.

If you are a parent it is important to collaborate with your child’s speech therapist to develop articulation goals that align with their Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or 504 Plan.

It is also important to encourage the school staff to provide consistent support for your child, such as implementing accommodations, providing specialized instruction, or offering speech therapy sessions.

SMART Goals

Establishing clear speech therapy goals is essential for setting a roadmap for your progress in articulation therapy.

Using the SMART goal words, described below, are helpful tools to help you get started writing IEP goals.

Goals should be SMART:

Specific – The goal should name the skill or subject area as well as the targeted result.

For example, “By the end of the quarter, given 20 words or pictures and verbal prompts, STUDENT will articulate the /vocalic r/ sound at the word level with 80% accuracy over three consecutive sessions.”

Measurable – The goal is written in such a way that the student’s progress can be measured.

For example, “By the end of the quarter, given 20 words or pictures and verbal prompts, STUDENT will articulate the /vocalic r/ sound at the word level with 80% accuracy over three consecutive sessions.”

Attainable – The goal is achievable and is realistic for your student or client to reach. Along with any support the student may need to achieve the goal.

For example, “By the end of the quarter, given 20 words or pictures and verbal prompts, STUDENT will articulate the /vocalic r/ sound at the word level with 80% accuracy over three consecutive sessions.”

Relevant – The goal is individualized to that individual student and is meaningful and realistic for that specific student.

Time-Bound – It is important that the goal include a time frame in which the student can achieve their goal.

For example, “By the end of the quarter, given 20 words or pictures and verbal prompts, STUDENT will articulate the /vocalic r/ sound at the word level with 80% accuracy over three consecutive sessions.”

It is helpful to break down your student’s goals into smaller objectives, focusing on particular speech sounds, and tracking progress over time.

Sample Goal

For example, a goal could be “By the end of the quarter, given 10 words or pictures and carrier phrases, STUDENT will articulate the /s/ sound at the sentence level with 80% accuracy over three consecutive sessions.”

As your student achieves their short-term goals, you can work towards them mastering more complex articulation tasks, such as using their targeted speech sounds in connected speech.

Regularly reviewing your student’s goals helps to ensure their therapy sessions remain focused and tailored to their individual needs.

Selecting Sounds to Target

A goal bank is a comprehensive collection of pre-written objectives tailored to various speech and language difficulties.

Developmental – This is when you choose which sounds to target first based on when they are developmentally developed.

For example, if a student’s speech sound disorder includes both the /r/ and /b/ sound you would begin with the /b/ sound first because it is developmentally developed by the age 2 or early while the /r/ sound is developed around age 6.

Theory Based –
- Complexity – This is when you focus on the more difficult or complex phonological elements that are not yet part of a child’s communication skills yet to help encourage a cascading effect that will hopefully generalize across sounds (Gierut, 2007; Storkel, 2018).
- Dynamic Systems – This strategy focuses on teaching and learning simple phonemes and avoiding introducing new contrasts into the child’s phonological systems to help the child acquire their target sounds (Rvachew & Bernhardt, 2010).
- Systemic – This strategy focuses on the function of the sound within the child’s phonological system to help make the biggest impact of reorganized their phonological system with the least amount of intervention. A target sound is then chosen based on it be maximally distinct from the child’s errors in place, voice, and manner (Williams, 2003b).

Client Specific – This is when you select the target sounds based on the relevance to the child, such as a phoneme in their name or their stimulability for certain sounds.

Intelligibility – For this strategy it depends on the child’s errors and picking the sounds or error patterns that would have the biggest overall impact based on their intelligibilty level.

Articulation Goals

Long Term Goal Bank

A goal bank is a comprehensive collection of pre-written objectives tailored to various speech and language difficulties.

Utilizing a goal bank allows you to easily reference and customize goals for your child’s ability and specific needs, saving time and ensuring the objectives are achievable and relevant.

For example, you may find goals targeting the production of specific sounds in the initial, medial, or final positions in words, phrases, or sentences. (see below)

Goal banks can be an invaluable resource when creating plans for early intervention, school settings, or home-based therapy, as they provide a clear framework for tracking progress and ensuring consistency in treatment.

Auditory Discrimination

Given 10 words, STUDENT will recognize the differences between the same or different words with 80% accuracy in 4 out of 5 opportunities.

Given a word broken down into isolated sounds, STUDENT will combine the isolated sounds together to form words with 80% accuracy in 4 out of 5 opportunities.