Month: November 2012

Big Ideas for Teaching Phonemes

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a four-year-old male client whose only consonant is D. He says “telephone” as “Deh-duh-doh.” How do I teach him other phonemes? Therapists use a wide variety of methods to stimulate new phonemes.  I have summarized them in an article published by the Oral Motor Institute (Marshalla, 2008).  I also have put this information into my newest seminar, titled “21st Century Articulation Therapy.”  It also will appear in my next book to be called “The Marshalla Guide to…

Epenthesis

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I am so happy to have found your website and blog. I shared the post you made about not stressing out over kids putting extra schwas at the ends of syllables (epenthesis) with all my coworkers at our speech clinic and they loved that advice.  I can’t tell you how many goals have been written in this clinic to avoid that process and I feel relieved that I can spend less time worrying about it and more time worrying…

Denying Lisp Services in the Schools

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My friend’s daughter has a lateral lisp and has been denied services in her school because “it does not affect her ability to learn the curriculum.”  I was alarmed and upset by this. Is it possible that certain school districts do not treat this?  What is your stance on this? Unfortunately there now are many school districts that hold this policy. Frankly, it makes me sick. If I were a parent I would be screaming about this. Sometimes a…

Getting a Two-Year-Old to Talk

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a two-year-old client who only says “Mmmm” and “Ahhh.” He won’t do anything for me. How can I get him to talk? First, I would like to refer you to my book called Becoming Verbal with Childhood Apraxia.  I am not trying to sell you a book, but I wrote it precisely for this type of case. It will help you understand how to help little kids become more vocal, verbal, interactive, communicative, and imitative.  It discusses…

How to Teach Ch

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My client can do S and Sh correctly, but I cannot get him to do Ch. Ideas? Van Riper used a term that applies here. He said the “association method” was the process of using a phoneme the client already can produce to teach him to say a phoneme he cannot produce.  In this case, the easiest way to do this is to use Sh to teach Ch. Think about how we transcribe Ch.  It is /t∫/.  This means…