By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have seen the Long T Method for teaching S on this blog and in your book “Frontal Lisp, Lateral Lisp” (Marshalla, 2007) as well as in the “Straight Up Speech” program by Jane Folk (Folk, 1992). I was wondering if you had to get permission from Jane for this, or if this method is in public domain? I made up that method just as I suspect Jane did. But it turns out that it is a very old…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I am seeing a child who substitutes K for T. He can click his tongue, can touch the alveolar ridge adequately with his tongue, and he understands the tongue placement for T. But he is not able to raise his tongue tip to the alveolar ridge during his attempt to articulate T. He has good phonemic discrimination, too. The lingua-alveolar consonants emerge when the jaw begins to move up-and-down, not when the tongue moves. So begin by teaching the…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My 12-year-old client is bright but has a lateral lisp. He has a gap between his side teeth. How can I tell if the dental gap is causing the lateral lisp, and how should I precede? I stuck cotton between the side teeth but it didn’t help. The dental problem may have contributed to the lisp, OR the lisp may have contributed to the dental problem. This is a chicken-and-egg situation that usually has no clear answer. But it doesn’t…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I am an SLP who works with preschoolers, and my own daughter has a slight problem at age 18 months. I am getting frantic about this and need advice. She uses more than 50 words, is beginning to put two-word combinations together, and she has consonant phonemes from each manner group (a few stops, glides, nasals, and fricated sounds). She has all her vowels except those that require lip rounding, and I cannot seem to get her to round…
