This advice-column-style blog for SLPs was authored by Pam Marshalla from 2006 to 2015, the archives of which can be explored here. Use the extensive keywords list found in the right-hand column (on mobile: at the bottom of the page) to browse specific topics, or use the search feature to locate specific words or phrases throughout the entire blog.
Introducing Frication
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My preschool client has no fricatives or affricates. Do you have advice for getting them started?
The fricatives and affricates emerge out of the pre-speech raspberries. I would start there. The raspberries are made both with and without voice and in many places of articulation–– bi-labial, lingua-labial, lingua-velar, and nasal snort.
I have my clients makes them big and sloppy at first. Then I teach them to make the soft and gentle.
When I move on to the fricated phonemes, I teach all of them at the same time so that the child gains the concept of frication (manner) first. Once frication begins to emerge and a variety of them are emerging, then I teach the individual ones by place.