By Pam Marshalla
Q: I am a SLP graduate student looking for some evidence-based practice to implement for a client diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech. I watched the YouTube videos of your hand cues for placement, and I think they would work great. I was wondering if you had any research to support these cues, or if you obtained research elsewhere to support them. A therapist doesn’t look for an evidence-based practice: A therapist creates one. The EBP is formed when a…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: How young will you see a child for an interdental/frontal lisp? Yours is one of the toughest questions to answer because there are different perspectives and different reasons for early treatment. If there is a speech problem only, most therapists in the public schools seem to wait for a child with a frontal lisp to turn 7 years of age and older. However, I meet many school SLPs who see these kids in kindergarten and first grade. Therapists in…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client started with a frontal lisp. Now he is now producing a “Whistling S.” How do I correct this? A whistling S usually is an S that is being made in just the right place that whistling occurs. Simply have your client begin to move his tongue-tip higher or lower, slightly more forward or back, or slightly more to the left or right as he prolongs his S. You are searching for the place that works to alleviate…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I recently attended your seminar on R therapy. I have a student who can say “growl” but that’s it. Should I use your syllable method? Yes! Use the syllable method! If he can do the word “growl”, then he should be able to say “grah” by taking the end of the word off. Then if he can say, “grah”, he should be able to say “ground”, “grouch”, “grout” and so forth. Just make sure to make the words into…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: You use the phrase “lack of stability” in relation to oral motor function. What do you mean by “stability”? I will have a full chapter on oral stability in my next book to be called The Marshalla Guide to 21st Century Articulation Therapy. Until then, the following is something I wrote in an article for the Oral Motor Institute: Stabilize Oral Movements To stabilize is “to make or become stable” (Jewell & Abate, 2001, p. 1656) or “not likely to change”…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I attended your conference on Frontal Lisp, Lateral Lisp, and Distorted R a few weeks ago, and I have been trying your methods. Your L-to-R tapping method has WORKED on my toughest clients! They can say “Ruh” but we don’t call it “R”––we call it “The way back L.” On all of your material, you have it typed out as “Ruh.” I am hesitant to write it that way for word practice because then my clients have been reverting…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I cannot get K or G out of my client although I think I have tried every trick in the book! For example, I have used modeling, auditory bombardment, tactile cueing, using a tongue depressor to hold the tongue-tip down, using a tongue depressor to push the back of the tongue down to create the reflex to get it to pop up, putting sweet taste on the velum to get back of tongue to reach for it, using gravity,…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client produces final consonants inconsistently. Do you suggest using minimal difference pairs? Multiple oppositions? I have tried targeting individual sounds as well as teaching several sounds at the same time. I’m wondering what methods you recommend. I use every technique I have ever heard of. I believe that all methods have value. Our job is to pair the right technique to the right client at the right moment. A certain technique might work perfectly well with one client and…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Does your explanation of techniques to address jaw and tongue stability pertain to clients with the Jay Leno phenomenon? Does the E technique help those kids with lisps related to this facial structure? Techniques to address oral movement are for oral movement problems. As you have noted, Jay Leno has an oral structural problem, too. Structure and function are addressed differently together. I have never worked with Leno, so my analysis of his situation is cursory and speculative, of…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client only produces [+Back] consonants K and G, and he sucks his thumb. His tongue is beginning to move for L. Do you think that the thumb sucking is keeping his tongue retracted? Tongue retraction can have many causes including an oral habit like thumb sucking. It also can be the result of oral-tactile hypersensitivity that is causing the tongue to pull back and high in a perpetual “high guard” position. It also is a problem when oral muscle…
