Month: April 2010

The Roles of Oral Rest Posture and Neutral Position in Articulation Therapy

By Pam Marshalla

Q: How do oral rest and the neutral position impact articulation? Should we be concerned about these subjects in clients with an articulation/phonological deficit? So very many of our clients have problems with oral rest posture and the neutral position that I get at least one email per week from all over the world from SLP’s trying to figure out what to do about it. I will have a chapter devoted to this topic in my next book to be…

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Oral Motor Tool Kit

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for building a basic oral motor therapy kit? There are literally thousands of objects one could use as an aid to oral movement in articulation therapy. I call them “the toys and tools of articulation training.” Charles Van Riper called them “phonetic placement devices” and wrote: “Every available device should be used to make the student understand clearly what positions of tongue, jaw, and lips are to be assumed” (Van Riper, 1954)….

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Quick Dismissal on /r/

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I saw a client with /r/ problems and dismissed him after he could produce /r/ with reminders on picture-naming tasks. I saw him again a year later and his /r/ had deteriorated. Should this have happened? Should I put him back in therapy, or do you think that this will take care of itself? What I have done with these kids is the following: You let him go too quickly. Never dismiss a client until the process of articulation…

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Stimulability and /r/ Therapy

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Do you think that a 21-year-old client who is not stimulable for /r/ can learn it? A client who is not stimulable for /r/ is just as likely to learn it in therapy as one who is not. The therapy is designed to teach it to him. The idea of “stimulability” comes from the phonology literature. When a client has multiple misarticulations we work on the next phoneme for which the client seems stimulable. The same idea does not necessarily…

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Cerebral Palsy and Intelligibility

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My 12-year-old grandson has cerebral palsy. He understands everything at age level but he is very hard to understand. He is getting very little speech help. How can we help him at home? Expressive speech is divided into Consonants, Vowels, Syllables, and Intonation Patterns. Most SLP’s focus on Consonants. I would suggest that you focus on Vowels, Syllables and Inflection instead. In other words, have your grandson practice important words, and instead of focusing on getting the consonants correct,…

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