4.3 Articulatory Gestures

ALTA Competency Exam for Multisensory Structured Language Education CALT

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1 Introduction & Exam Overview

1.1 Current Exam Facts 1.2 Eligibility and Therapy-Level Training 1.3 Registration, Prometric, and Study Plan

2 Language Development: Oral and Written Continuum

2.1 Oral-to-Written Language Continuum 2.2 Receptive and Expressive Oral Language 2.3 Receptive and Expressive Written Language

3 Language Development: Phonological Processing & Research

3.1 Atypical Literacy Development and Remediation 3.2 Phonological Processing Components 3.3 Research on Language Development

4 Structural Linguistics: Phonology

4.1 Continuum of Phonological Skills 4.2 Phonemes, Graphemes, and Morphemes 4.3 Articulatory Gestures

5 Structural Linguistics: Alphabetic Principle & Syllables

5.1 Alphabetic Principle and Sight-Word Recognition 5.2 Six Syllable Types 5.3 Syllable Division Patterns

6 Structural Linguistics: Accent, Morphology & Orthography

6.1 Accent Placement and Sound-Symbol Influences 6.2 Morphology: Roots and Affixes 6.3 Orthography, Affixing Rules, and Etymology

7 Structural Linguistics: Syntax, Semantics & Comprehension

7.1 Syntax, Sentence Structure, and Punctuation 7.2 Semantics and Pragmatics 7.3 Comprehension Strategies and Text Structures

8 Structural Linguistics: Written Language & Research

8.1 Handwriting and the Writing Process 8.2 Research on Structural Linguistics

9 Dyslexia: Definition, Brain & Neurology

9.1 Defining Dyslexia and Instructional Impact 9.2 Brain Anatomy and the Reading Network 9.3 Neurological Aspects of Learning Disabilities

10 Dyslexia: Related Issues, Comorbidity & History

10.1 Behavioral, Social, and Emotional Issues 10.2 Comorbid Disorders 10.3 Historical Pioneers in Dyslexia

11 Dyslexia: Research & Executive Function

11.1 Research on Dyslexia and Related Disorders 11.2 Executive Function and Dyslexia

12 Psychoeducational Assessment: Foundations

12.1 Assessment Terminology and Purposes 12.2 Essential Components of a Dyslexia Evaluation 12.3 Formal and Informal Assessment Instruments

13 Psychoeducational Assessment: Interpretation & Error Analysis

13.1 Interpreting Standard Scores, Percentiles, and Stanines 13.2 Using Results to Guide Services 13.3 Error Analysis of Work Samples 13.4 Psychoeducational Research

14 MSL Strategies: Multisensory, Systematic & Analytic

14.1 Simultaneous VAKT Multisensory Strategies 14.2 Systematic and Cumulative Instruction 14.3 Synthetic vs Analytic Instruction

15 MSL Strategies: Direct Instruction, Automaticity & Diagnosis

15.1 Direct vs Indirect Instruction 15.2 Automaticity in Literacy Development 15.3 Diagnostic Teaching

16 MSL Strategies: Program Principles & Theoretical Models

16.1 MSLE Program Content and Principles 16.2 Metacognition and Learning Environments 16.3 Simple View of Reading 16.4 Scarborough's Reading Rope

17 Federal Laws: IDEA, Section 504 & ADA

17.1 Federal Disability Law Landscape 17.2 Federal Eligibility Guidelines 17.3 Documentation Decisions and Accommodations 17.4 Historical Development of Disability Law

18 Professional Ethics: ALTA Code of Ethics

18.1 ALTA Code of Ethics Overview 18.2 Confidentiality, Competence, and Credentials 18.3 Ethical Standards with Parents and Colleagues

19 Professional Communication

19.1 Professional Student Reports 19.2 Strengths- and Needs-Based Language 19.3 Communicating with Parents, Students, and Colleagues

4.3 Articulatory Gestures

Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI

Articulatory gestures describe how speech sounds are formed by place, manner, and voicing of the articulators

Place of articulation (e.g., bilabial, alveolar, velar) identifies where the airflow is constricted

Manner of articulation (stop, fricative, nasal, liquid, glide, affricate) identifies how the airflow is shaped

Voicing contrasts paired consonants (/p/–/b/, /t/–/d/, /k/–/g/, /f/–/v/, /s/–/z/) and supports discrimination and spelling of endings

MSLE therapists use mouth cues, mirrors, and gesture labels to make invisible phoneme contrasts concrete for students with dyslexia

Last updated: July 2026

4.3 Articulatory Gestures

Quick Answer: Articulatory gestures are the coordinated movements of the lips, tongue, jaw, soft palate, and vocal folds that create phonemes. Classifying consonants by place, manner, and voicing—and vowels by tongue height, advancement, and lip rounding—gives MSLE therapists a precise language for teaching sound contrasts students cannot "see" on the page.

Objective 2.A.7 requires knowledge of how speech sounds are produced. For academic language therapists, articulatory awareness is a teaching tool: when a student cannot hear the difference between /f/ and /th/, or between /b/ and /p/, describing and feeling the gesture often unlocks the contrast more effectively than repeating the sounds louder.

Why Articulation Matters in Literacy Therapy

Reading and spelling depend on stable phoneme categories. Students with dyslexia frequently show fuzzy phoneme boundaries, especially for:

Voicing pairs ( pat / bat )
Continuant contrasts ( fin / thin ; sue / zoo )
Nasals in final position ( ham vs. had )
Liquids /l/ and /r/ in blends ( blue , frog )

Articulatory cues make those categories tangible. A mirror shows lip closure for bilabials; a hand on the throat detects voicing; a feel of airflow distinguishes stops from fricatives. Multisensory structured language education deliberately pairs these kinesthetic and tactile cues with auditory models and, later, graphemes.

The Three Parameters of Consonants

English consonant phonemes are traditionally described with three features:

1. Place of Articulation
Place answers "where is the constriction?"

Place Articulators Example phonemes
Bilabial Both lips /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/
Labiodental Lower lip + upper teeth /f/, /v/
Interdental (dental) Tongue tip + teeth /th/ (voiceless), /th/ (voiced) as in thin / this
Alveolar Tongue tip/blade + alveolar ridge /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /l/
Palatal / Post-alveolar Tongue toward hard palate /sh/, /zh/, /ch/, /j/, /y/
Velar Tongue body + soft palate /k/, /g/, /ng/
Glottal Vocal folds /h/

Teaching language often simplifies labels for students ("lips together," "tongue between teeth," "tongue on the bump behind your teeth") while therapists retain the technical place names for precision and exam use.

2. Manner of Articulation
Manner answers "how is the airflow shaped?"

Manner Gesture pattern Examples
Stop (plosive) Complete closure, then release /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/
Fricative Narrow constriction, continuous noisy airflow /f/, /v/, /th/, /s/, /z/, /sh/, /zh/, /h/
Affricate Stop released into a fricative /ch/, /j/
Nasal Oral closure with airflow through the nose /m/, /n/, /ng/
Liquid Relatively open oral airflow with tongue shaping /l/, /r/
Glide (semivowel) Vowel-like movement into another vowel /w/, /y/

Manner errors explain many spelling and reading confusions. A student who writes chip as ship may be reducing an affricate to a fricative—the place is similar (palatal region), but the manner differs (affricate vs. fricative).

3. Voicing
Voicing answers "are the vocal folds vibrating?"

Paired contrasts (same place and manner, different voicing) include:

/p/–/b/, /t/–/d/, /k/–/g/
/f/–/v/, /th/–/th/ (thin/this), /s/–/z/, /sh/–/zh/
/ch/–/j/

Voicing is clinically vital for morphology as well: after a voiceless final consonant, regular past tense often surfaces as /t/ ( jumped ); after a voiced sound, as /d/ ( played ). Therapists who can name voicing can explain these patterns instead of treating them as arbitrary exceptions.

Vowels as Gestures

Vowels are produced with a relatively open vocal tract. They are described mainly by:

Tongue height — high ( beat ), mid ( bait ), low ( bat )
Tongue advancement — front ( beat ), central ( but ), back ( boot )
Lip rounding — rounded ( boot ) vs. unrounded ( beat )

Tense vs. lax — longer/tenser qualities (often "long" vowels in reading terms) vs. shorter/laxer ("short" vowels)

R-controlled — vowel quality colored by /r/ ( car , her , for )
Diphthongs — gliding gestures within one syllable (/oi/, /ou/, /ī/ as a glide in many analyses)

In MSLE lessons, vowel gestures are often taught with hand or mouth cues that exaggerate jaw drop for short /ă/, lip rounding for /oo/, or the glide for /oi/. The goal is stable category formation so that graphemes for short and long vowels can attach to distinct oral targets.

Coarticulation and Blends

Speech is not a string of isolated poses. Coarticulation means articulators overlap gestures for neighboring phonemes. In the blend /s/ /t/ /r/ of street , the tongue is already preparing for /r/ while releasing /t/. Students may therefore perceive a blend as "one sound." Therapy slows the sequence, uses tokens for each phoneme, and may exaggerate each gesture before rebuilding natural coarticulation for fluent speech and reading.

Using Gestures in Multisensory Lessons

A practical MSLE sequence for a difficult consonant contrast:

Auditory model — therapist produces the target phonemes clearly

Visual/kinesthetic discovery — mirror, throat touch, paper strip for airflow, tongue depressor if appropriate and within scope

Label the gesture — "lips together, quiet sound" for /p/ vs. "lips together, voice on" for /b/
Isolation and discrimination — same/different and odd-one-out tasks
Link to grapheme — introduce or review the letter(s) after oral contrast is stable
Word-level application — reading and spelling in controlled patterns

Therapists stay within professional scope: persistent articulation disorders may require referral to a speech-language pathologist, while CALTs use articulatory information to support phonological and phonics learning, not to replace clinical speech therapy.

Exam Application

Expect questions that ask you to identify place, manner, or voicing for a given phoneme; to explain why /m/ is a bilabial nasal; to contrast stops and fricatives; or to choose an instructional cue that targets a specific feature (e.g., feeling vibration for voicing). Precise feature language is the marker of Domain 2.A mastery.