Today I’m sharing a collection of free background noises to use in speech therapy. We work with people returning to restaurants, malls, jobs, and families, so let’s bring a little of this into the therapy space. Try adding some distracting background noise during the session to make the environment more like real life. I find background noise useful/functional for challenging many skills or strategies!
Here are a variety of noises to use, depending on the patient-centered goals:
Restaurant Noises
Airport Noises
Factory / Machine Noises
Construction Sounds
People Talking in a Bar
Kids in a Park
Driving in the Rain
Depending on patient goals, you could note and document the following factors in therapy:
Language:
- Do skills generalize across multiple “settings” in therapy?
- Do word-finding abilities decrease with distraction?
- Are different expression or comprehension strategies required with busier environments?
Cognition:
- Is selective attention intact to complete task in noisy environment?
- Is patient able to self-cue for strategies, such as asking for volume to be turned down?
- Does memory change in less predictable or busier environment?
- What length of time could the patient tolerate the background noise before having increasing headache?
Speech:
- Does intelligibility change in noisier environment?
- Does the patient independently alter patterns or strategy use to compensate for a different environment?