The Frightful Facility

A parody of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride attraction

When asking for candy is an appropriate behavior
And fun and colorful doors decorate the halls
When you get a pumpkin sticker
Because your speech therapist said you did well
That is the time when kids are learning
Practicing their speech sounds in “ghoul”, “witch”, and “fright”.

Welcome, SmallTalk families, to our Halloween celebration. I am your speech therapist. Well,
your child’s speech therapist. Kindly reschedule any missed appointments, and call ahead for
planned absences. Please switch to a virtual session if you’re sick.

Our lesson begins here on this blogpost, where you see lists of words for some of our
frequently-targeted speech goals.

Your puzzled facial expression betrays your sense of skepticism, almost as though you think
this might be a waste of your time. Is practicing just five target words daily actually useful? Or is
it just more busywork? And consider this interesting observation: your child is motivated to say
these ghostly words this time of year…which offers you this additional challenge: to think of
more spine-chilling Halloween words! Of course, there’s always Halloween word lists published
online.

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Did you know that when practicing speech sounds, repeating target words is often more
effective than practicing a long list of new words? Here are lists of some of our commonly-
targeted speech sounds to incorporate into your regular speech practice routine at home. If you
don’t see a list appropriate to your child’s speech sound goals, try making your own!

Happy Halloween from all of your friends at SmallTalk!

By Kathleen Winger, M.S., CCC-SLP