By Pam Marshalla
Q: What about kids who add a schwa to the end or middle of words? Do you have any ideas for that? I see the addition of a schwa as the child’s way of making a simpler speech motor pattern. According to researchers, the CV is the simplest motor pattern and kids change a CVC to a CV-CV to make it easier. All kids do this — e.g., “mom” changes to “mama” and “dad” changes to “dada”. They also do this with the diminutive —…
By Pam Marshalla
I get questions all the time about children with global delays and severe speech-language impairment. The current trend is to call these children “apraxic” and to treat them like other children with motor speech disorders. But this is an incorrect approach that results in confusion over the purpose and direction of therapy. For example, here is a letter I received lately: I started working with a boy (who is now 3 yrs.) about a year ago. He has delays “across…
