By Pam Marshalla
Q: Would you work on a lateral lisp in a 3-year-old? How? Most therapists would not treat a lateral lisp in a 3-year-old, but one could, and some do. Use the “Long T Method” and make it playful. Hold one end of a straw in front of the central teeth and have the child make a T. The airstream should go into the straw and amplify. Now make it “longer” — aspirate it. It won’t sound like “S” but it…
By Pam Marshalla
For readers seeking more information about orofacial myology, there is a new blog which I highly recommend. Link here!
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I am an SLP and a mother with a four-year-old boy who has a frontal lisp. Do you think I should work with him, and if so, what simple things could I do at home? I always tell parents we do not have to work on a frontal lisp in a preschool child, but we usually do anyway because the parents want it. I find that the absolute key to remediation of the frontal lisp has three essential parts:…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Do you have any tips for promoting good /r/ and /l/ in toddlers? Not to correct the phonemes directly, but to set the child up for future success by doing certain oral activities? Most would agree that we do not have to correct R and L in toddlers, but the idea that we can set them on the right development path is right on. This is what I do to set a child on the right developmental path for…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client misarticulates all the lingua-alveolar consonants–– T, D, N, L, S, Z. Can you give me some advice for how to fix them? Designing methods to “fix” a phoneme all depends upon what is wrong with it. Therefore in order to recommend methods to address these lingua-alveolars, one would need to know–– Are they completely absent from the client’s repertoire? Are they backed? Are they lateralized? Are they interdentalized? Are they nasalized? Is there a lack of plosiveness…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My preschool client backed all lingua-alveolars until I taught him D. But not — it is distorted (his tongue looks funny) and the other sounds aren’t coming. Help! Most kids with a restricting lingua frenum use what the elocutionists used to call “thick speech” meaning that it was speech produced without the tongue bowled. The tongue was humping, bulging, or what the researchers today would call arching upward. This is probably what your client is now doing on D,…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Can I expect correct articulation on S, Z, Sh, ZH, CH, J, T, D, N, and L when my client has a tongue crib that fills the entire alveolar ridge? The orthodontist is recommending SL therapy for the phonemes and to fix the swallow. In my experience clients usually cannot produce any of their lingua-alveolar and/or sibilant sounds correctly as long as an appliance like that is in the mouth. The appliance distorts sound, especially stridency. I usually do…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My preschool client with apraxia can only say “K” when he bobs his head around. Should I ignore this as part of the learning process? Some clients seem to need extraneous movement to initiate a phoneme’s movements, but they do not need them for long. I see them as gross movements that will become more refined with time. I usually let my clients do all this extra movement at first, and I even emphasize it by imitating it back…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client cannot produce some of the short vowels and I am having a terrible time teaching them to him. He cannot get his tongue in the right positions. Any suggestions? The problem we have teaching the vowels is that most of us have been training to think that it is all about tongue position. Tongue position is important when adults differentiate their vowels. But when children are learning all the vowels in infancy, it is the jaw that…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My 5-year-old son has average intelligence but speaks in 3-5 word utterances. He had hearing problems earlier. The SLP at school wants to put him into a group. Can he be affected by the modeling of the other students who also have poor articulation? Isn’t a 1-to-1 setting better? I work in private practice because I always prefer the 1:1 situation, but a group can be useful for many reasons. Group work can be more motivating and fun. Language…
