Articulation Archives - Page 11 of 34 - Marshalla Speech & Language

Category: Articulation

Low Cognition and SLP: Therapy vs. Babysitting and School Culture

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I am very frustrated working in the public school. I am forced to see very low functioning children 2-4 times per week, and even with this much therapy they are not progressing in vocabulary, phonemes, nothing. Am I doing something wrong? Let me be very blunt here. Warning! Those of you who don’t know me need to be warned that I do not speak with political correctness. I find it to be an imposition on our freedom of speech…

Low Tone and Speech Therapy

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My client has low tone and many deviant phonological processes. Is this common? Does this mean he has dysarthria? How should my treatment look different from traditional articulation or phonological therapy? Yes! If the child has hypotonia then this is dysarthria. Whenever you have muscle tone problems of a global nature, then dysarthria is the diagnosis. Dysarthria is a speech movement problem that is the result of muscle tone disturbance. (See definitions below) It is common for children with…

The Schwa… Then What?

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My client can produce only the schwa––“Uh.” He is 3-years-old and pretty smart. But he cannot imitate any consonants or vowels at all. What can I do? This is what I would be thinking about––– Teach him to prolong the sound he has––the schwa. And teach him to tolerate your hands on his jaw. Once he can prolong his schwa and tolerate your hands, move his jaw up-and-down while he is vocalizing. If he can prolong his sound while you…

Starting Carryover with Young Kids

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Is there an age constraint for starting self-awareness techniques for carryover? My son is 6 years old. Carryover ideas should start right from the first day of therapy, no matter the client’s age. That means that you are planning for and thinking about and stimulating for carryover from the first day, and you are dropping in ideas here and there. For example, let’s say your child is learning to keep his tongue in his mouth. He can work on…

Mobius Syndrome and Articulation Therapy

By Pam Marshalla

Q: What type of articulation therapy should be provided for children with Mobius Syndrome? I have only seen a few children with Mobius Syndrome, and those were seen for diagnosis only. As I understand it, facial paralysis is the main problem and the paralysis can involve some or all of the facial muscles, particularly the upper lip in most cases. The breadth and scope of the paralysis will guide speech involvement. One client I saw had paralysis only in the…

Push-In vs. Pull-out

By Pam Marshalla

Q: What is your opinion about push-in vs. pull-out therapy? Is anyone doing research on this? As far as I know, no one is doing research on in-class versus pull-out therapy for articulation. I cannot address this question as it concerns language. In my opinion, in-class stimulation is good for the following: Building general vocabulary and concepts Establishing general communication routines Encouraging basic syntactic structures Stimulating phonological awareness Engaging in articulation carryover activities Teaching elocution Teaching early-developing phonemes—P, B, M…

Is a Frontal Lisp Outgrown?

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My 4-year-old son has a frontal lisp. The school is refusing services and says he will outgrow it. Is this true in all cases? No one that I know of is researching this area any more and there are big questions like this one that are going un-answered. There seem to be two types of frontal lisps. The first is an immature speech pattern that will go away with time––by 7-9 years of age. The second is the result…

Teach the Feature First

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Do I understand your advice? […] When working on producing the ‘hissing” sounds, my focus should be on the airflow and not the correct sound production. For example, the client can’t say Ch but is able to get a lot of airflow on her attempt when probed. So I should reward her when she says Ts instead. Is this correct? My experience and research on normal development demonstrates that children learn MANNER before they learn PLACE features. Thus, stridency…

Whining Toddler

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I am working with a child 2;6 who substitutes /n/ or /m/ for many other consonants. We have worked with words she says often, and she can make the correct sounds in words with a model, but talking on her own she just sounds like she is whining. Two-year-olds can be so variable, and what looks like something very severe can turn out to be nothing. She simply may be jargoning, and her jargon happens to sound like whining. …

Tongue-Tip on L

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My 4-year-old client has learned L with his tongue-tip down. Should I let him continue this pattern, or should I teach him to make a tip-up L? In my opinion, you always want the tongue-tip to be elevated when it is supposed to be on T, D, N, and L. You want your client to be developing oral movement patterns that will help him succeed all the way through to mature speech. So you are teaching him things today…