Category: Articulation

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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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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S Therapy: “Dippers” and “Tippers”

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a client with a lateral lisp, and I have started trying to elicit an S with the tongue tip down. I call a tip-down S a “dipper” and a tip-up S a “tipper.” The dipper position has helped him, but I can’t find any information about the validity of using such an approach. Can you point me in the right direction? I love your terms “tipper” and “dipper.” Excellent shorthand! The tipper and the dipper are allophonic…

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Limited Speech and Language

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I am working with an 8-year-old client with severe apraxia who only can produce vowels, M and B. I have tried all the strategies in beginning of your book called Apraxia Uncovered. But this has also not yielded much. Do you have any hints for how to physically prompt other consonants? This child has severe cognitive dysfunction, too. The reason that the information in Apraxia Uncovered was not of much help to you is because although your client may…

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Tonsils, Adenoids and Lateral Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Do you think that enlarged tonsils and adenoids are related to the lateral lisp? We have no data on this as far as I know. I have seen a few kids where I thought these problems were inter-related. But I would not suspect that all tonsil/adenoid problems cause lateral lisps, or that all lateral lisps are caused by tonsil/adenoid problems. I think you have to determine this for the individual child. We must ask ourselves: Do the tonsil/adenoid problems…

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