By Pam Marshalla
Q: I am an SLP and cannot figure out how to remediate my own 20-month-old daughter’s speech problem. She is very expressive, has unlimited vocabulary, is speaking in 4-word sentences, and has above average articulation. She recently developed a cold which is now gone but as a result she is now producing L in place of N in all word positions. She is saying “Lo for “no” and “Bel” for “Ben.” She had this correct before. How should I correct…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: How do you transcribe a frontal lisp? There are many ways to designate a frontal lisp– Some therapists do like to write it as Th/S (using IPA symbols, of course.) Some place a right-facing arrow under the phoneme, to indicate that the tongue is protruding forward. Some draw a circle between a downward-facing caret and an upward-facing caret, indicating the tongue is between the upper and lower teeth. Some simply write D for distorted, but I think that is…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: How do you teach Sh and Ch when a client has a lateral lisp? Start with Sh–– Have the client smile and produce an exaggerated Long E–– Eeeee. Then tell him to hold his tongue in the E position and pant. He will be making a gross Sh at that point. Now have him keep panting in that way and round the lips. He will be saying Sh. Then go to Ch–– Have the client prolong Sh–– Shhhhhhhhhhh. While prolonging…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client has no fricatives/affricates. I have been working of F for about three months, and he is just not getting it. This is how I work: If I cannot get one particular phoneme when a client has none in the class, I revert back to stimulating the class or distinctive feature. Instead of teaching one particular phoneme in the class or with the feature, stimulate for them all. That way the client learns to recognize the similarities between…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I went to your class on R therapy, but I still do not understand how to help a client who can say R in some words but not others. For example, my client can say “board” but not “bird.” Help! This is what I do with kids who have Rs in some words and not others–– I see if I can manipulate a word they can say in such a way that the “er” is teased away from the…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have read your R book and have taken 2 classes from you, but I am still struggling with student with persistent R distortions. She has the most success producing vocalic R (car, ear, air, tire) but not “Er” all by itself. This is a very common problem that many SLPs have. How does one obtain an isolated “Er” when the child has it in a vocalic position attached to other vowels? I usually help the client like this–…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client has a cross bite and his jaw lateralizes to the right causing overall speech imprecision. I am holding his jaw in place with standard jaw stabilization I learned for feeding therapy, but it’s not working. His jaw slips back out of position as soon as I remove my hand. That kind of “hands on” jaw stabilization procedure is good for feeding therapy, but is not effective for speech for the very reason you mentioned–– because as soon…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have tried “everything” to teach R to this one client and he has gotten nowhere. Then one day he learns a Spanish trilled /r/, and WHAM! He gets an American R right away. Can you explain this? Van Riper wrote about this as one method for teaching the retroflex R: “Have the child imitate you as you trill the tongue-tip. Then use this trill to precede the vowel E” (Van Riper, Speech Correction, 1947, p. 142). Think of…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: How do you get a tongue-tip to curl up and back toward the velum for the retroflex R? I have been using cream cheese, but it does not stick to the palate well, and I have been pushing the tongue back, but the child just doesn’t get what I want him to do. First, using food on the palate is an old-time popular method to stimulate tongue movement, but I never use food. You have to analyze the stimulus. …
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…
