By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have been to one of your workshops and heard you say, “Speech is movement.” Is that something you made up or does it come from something you read? “Speech is Movement” is my therapeutic motto. It is a quote I got from the 20th century’s first greatest motor speech scientist in Stetson, R. (1928). Motor Phonetics: A Study of Speech Movements in Action. USA: North Holland.
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My nearly 3-year-old client makes a substitution for /k/ which comes from the throat. The closest I have found online is to describe it as a uvular stop. Have you heard this substitution before and how would you describe it. Any thoughts on how to treat it? Infants start out by making stops and fricatives all along the vocal track from anterior to posterior — Bi-labial Labial-dental Lingual-labial Lingual-dental Lingual-alveolar Lingual-velar Tracheal Glottal Then they learn to restrict what…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: What is the secret for vocalic R? I have students who can produce prevocalic R very well yet when it comes to Ar, Or, and Ir, and so forth, they flounder. Any tips for this? The key to mastery of vocalic R first is to realize that tongue position for prevocalic R and postvocalic R are exactly the same. The difference is in the transitions movements. Transitions Movements When we produce a prevocalic R at the beginning of a…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client makes a whistling sound when he says S. Do you have advice? A high-pitched “whistled S” is the result of an airway space in the mouth that simply is too narrow causing whistling instead of true frication. All you have to do is get him in front of a mirror and have him start experimenting with how much air he is letting out. He may need to pull the tip of his tongue back a little, or…
