Loudness Self-Monitoring Across Settings
Calibrate loudness to setting -- the most common voice-abuse pattern on a secondary caseload.
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How to run it
Talk about the loud column rather than the quiet one. Nobody damages their voice in a library; the cafeteria, the gym and the job floor are where the strain happens, and the useful question is what to do there. Getting closer, waiting for a gap, or using a gesture are all substitutions worth naming — a student told simply to be quieter in a gym will ignore the advice, correctly. Twelve minutes covers the sort and the discussion.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentRead the card and wait 5 seconds for the student's answer.Log as correct
- HintAsk 'How would your voice feel after that?'Log as cued
- Two choicesOffer two answers, the right one not always second.Log as cued
- ExplainGive the answer and the reason; the student says it back in their own words.Log as cued
Voice work belongs after an ENT examination. If hoarseness lasts or gets worse, stop and refer back to the physician.
Adjust it
Use fewer cards and sort into just two groups.
Plan what the student will do in their own hardest voice situation this week.
Matching IEP goal
Given everyday scenarios, Student will identify the voice-healthy choice and a reason in 8 of 10 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Eight settings sorted into three loudness levels: library and a phone call in a quiet room take a quiet voice; one-on-one with a teacher, the hallway between classes and a car with friends take a normal voice; the cafeteria at lunch, the gym during a game and a job floor with machines running take a loud one. The settings are secondary ones, which is deliberate — this is where most voice strain on a high school caseload comes from.
What to listen for
Watch how the student describes their own week. Sorting the cards is easy; naming which of the three loud settings they are in most, and for how long, is the useful data. Notice whether they have any strategy other than shouting — most do not, and supplying one is more effective than any amount of hygiene advice. Loudness is one plausible cause of a rough voice and not the only one. A student who has been hoarse for more than about four weeks needs an ENT examination before the volume data is acted on.
Carrying it home
The job floor and the car are family territory. Asking whether the student shouts over music in the car, and agreeing to turn it down instead, is a concrete change that costs nobody anything.
What's in this activity
- quiet voice
- normal voice
- loud voice
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Sixth through twelfth grade, where the loud settings are frequent and largely outside adult supervision.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all eight items play with no account.
- Why focus on setting rather than on the voice itself?
- Because loudness is a response to an environment. A student who spends an hour a day shouting over a gym will not sustain a change made in a therapy room; changing what they do in the gym is the intervention.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.