By Pam Marshalla
Q: How long should it take to establish midline airstream when a client has a lateral lisp? This depends upon what you are talking about. Are you trying to figure out how long it should take you to obtain the client’s first midline sibilant, or to finish the entire program? To be very honest, an SLP with no specific training on how to treat a lateral lisp may NEVER figure out how to get a correct set of midline sibilant…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I am an SLP from Greece, and I’ve been working with a five-year-old girl with lateral lisp for four months. She still cannot produce a clear “S”. I am interested in buying your book on this subject, but I’d like to know whether these techniques apply only to English. Also, I have heard some SLPs claim that a lateral lisp cannot always be cured. I have never met a lateral lisp that could not be fixed except in the…
By Pam Marshalla
This opinion paper was originally posted as a downloadable PDF on my website, authored in September, 2011. Download the original PDF here. *** Making Speech Targets Salient Classic Auditory Training Tools for Amplifying Speech By Pam Marshalla, MA, CCC-SLP Speech-Language Pathologist Making Speech Targets Salient One of the most important things we do in articulation therapy is to make speech units stand out so the client can focus on them. Our most important tool for making speech units salient is our own…
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: 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…
