Auditory Bombardment
Auditory bombardment was first recommended for my son while working on improving annunciation. He has difficulty articulating certain sounds, especially /s/ and /ch/, so his therapist recommended incorporating auditory bombardment at home. This activity is so simple to implement with no known downsides that it seemed silly not to at least give it a try.
What is auditory bombardment?
Auditory bombardment is an evidence/research based therapy in which a target sound is repeated multiple times for the child to hear. Providing a child with many opportunities to hear the desired sound can help in developing their awareness of its correct form, especially if they are having difficulty producing it themselves.
Photo by Alireza Attari on Unsplash
Who is auditory bombardment recommended for?
Auditory bombardment is typically recommended for children with developmental language disorders and children who are deaf or hard of hearing. My son has an expressive language delay, and auditory bombardment was recommended by two separate therapists as an at home activity to aide his ongoing therapy sessions.
How to implement auditory bombardment
There are many ways to execute auditory bombardment at home, and these themes are consistently recommended for at home implementation:
Practice auditory bombardment during a daily routine with minimal distractions. This could be on a car ride, incorporated into meaningful play, or during a meal.
Expose your kiddo to the desired sound multiple times, once or twice a day. This does not need to take long and could be as quick as 1-3 minutes of non-distracted bombardment per session.
Auditory bombardment can also come throughout the day as your encounter opportunities to model the sound during daily activity. Simply use the words/sounds as many times as you can.
Auditory bombardment resources
Bolster’s Auditory Bombardment Story Series: After creating countless auditory bombardment stories for my son during our car rides, I decided to share these stories with other caregivers looking for ready-made options. Now, you can enjoy our first story, featuring the /ch/ sound, without having to come up with new storylines yourself. Discover it here!
YouTube: If you have access to YouTube, a quick search of “auditory bombardment” will provide a wealth of resources. The videos that our Speech-Language Pathologist recommended came from DESpeechie, or Ms. Palombo’s Speech Therapy Homework Channel. We specifically used Auditory Bombardment blends video for s-blends and Auditory Bombardment s for the /s/ sound. My son liked listening to these videos enough that he would request we play them over and over again.
Auditory bombardment video for the “go” sound “s”
Pictures: There are many places to grab articulation ‘worksheets’ filled with pictures that provide engaging auditory bombardment opportunities. Mommy Speech Therapy is a great resource that provides these worksheets for free. There are several ways to incorporate these pictures into auditory bombardment, including:
Simply point to the pictures as you clearly read the word aloud.
Say a word on the sheet, and have your child place a toy on the word that they heard. We like to use a small piece of play dough and smash it on the correct picture.
Cut the pictures out so you can focus on one word at a time. You can slowly place the specific image in front of your child as you name what it is.
Lists: Another simple way to incorporate auditory bombardment is by reading from a list of words. You can create a list of appropriate words based on your situation, or do a quick search online to find appropriate terms. A search for “list of /ch/ initial words” resulted in many great resources included this list from Speechy Musings.
Final Thoughts
First, it should be noted that I am not a therapist and this post is not intended to be medical advice. Rather, this is an explanation of an accessible therapy and includes advice that we received from our therapist.
It is also worth nothing that one study found that auditory bombardment is not an effective use of therapy time. Our therapists do not do this during their therapy sessions, but rather encourage us to practice auditory bombardment at home.
