Author: Pam Marshalla

Language Therapy with a Blind Child

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I just was assigned a three-year-old child who is blind and who has no expressive language. I have never worked with a child like this before. I am looking for general guidance. I am not an expert on working with blind children, but I have some experience and these are my thoughts–– Blindness effects language development in certain ways mostly by limiting the child’s experiences and related vocabulary and concepts.  How does he develop concepts of size and space…

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Big Ideas for Teaching Phonemes

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a four-year-old male client whose only consonant is D. He says “telephone” as “Deh-duh-doh.” How do I teach him other phonemes? Therapists use a wide variety of methods to stimulate new phonemes.  I have summarized them in an article published by the Oral Motor Institute (Marshalla, 2008).  I also have put this information into my newest seminar, titled “21st Century Articulation Therapy.”  It also will appear in my next book to be called “The Marshalla Guide to…

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Epenthesis

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I am so happy to have found your website and blog. I shared the post you made about not stressing out over kids putting extra schwas at the ends of syllables (epenthesis) with all my coworkers at our speech clinic and they loved that advice.  I can’t tell you how many goals have been written in this clinic to avoid that process and I feel relieved that I can spend less time worrying about it and more time worrying…

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Denying Lisp Services in the Schools

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My friend’s daughter has a lateral lisp and has been denied services in her school because “it does not affect her ability to learn the curriculum.”  I was alarmed and upset by this. Is it possible that certain school districts do not treat this?  What is your stance on this? Unfortunately there now are many school districts that hold this policy. Frankly, it makes me sick. If I were a parent I would be screaming about this. Sometimes a…

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Getting a Two-Year-Old to Talk

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a two-year-old client who only says “Mmmm” and “Ahhh.” He won’t do anything for me. How can I get him to talk? First, I would like to refer you to my book called Becoming Verbal with Childhood Apraxia.  I am not trying to sell you a book, but I wrote it precisely for this type of case. It will help you understand how to help little kids become more vocal, verbal, interactive, communicative, and imitative.  It discusses…

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How to Teach Ch

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My client can do S and Sh correctly, but I cannot get him to do Ch. Ideas? Van Riper used a term that applies here. He said the “association method” was the process of using a phoneme the client already can produce to teach him to say a phoneme he cannot produce.  In this case, the easiest way to do this is to use Sh to teach Ch. Think about how we transcribe Ch.  It is /t∫/.  This means…

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Tongue Stability

By Pam Marshalla

Q: How do you stimulate for tongue stability at the back-lateral margins when a child is too young to understand what you are talking about? That is a great question.  The position of tongue stability is the same as Long E, as in the word “bee.” So with the little guys, I don’t try to explain it. I just over work Long E for a very long time.  These are the types of things I do: Overwork the diminutives: kitty,…

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Familial Lateral Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Should a lateral lisp be treated for a three-year-old when it is present in the speech of a parent? Maybe it will not be outgrown? I always treat lateral lisp as early as possible because I do not believe that it is ever outgrown.  The lateral lisp is a deviant sound, not a delayed sound.  Therefore more time will not necessarily make it go away. If anything, the lateral lisp seems to get more habituated as the child gets…

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Making L Sound Better

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a number of clients whose L doesn’t sound right. The tongue-tip is lifting to the alveolar ridge, but the sound is muffled and just a little distorted. Do you have any suggestions? The tongue-tip probably is elevating without the full tongue thinning enough. Try this: Have the client say La-La-La with the jaw lower.  Lowering the jaw usually thins the tongue. Have him say Ah first, and have him keep saying Ah while he says L. Make…

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