This advice-column-style blog for SLPs was authored by Pam Marshalla from 2006 to 2015, the archives of which can be explored here. Use the extensive keywords list found in the right-hand column (on mobile: at the bottom of the page) to browse specific topics, or use the search feature to locate specific words or phrases throughout the entire blog.
Reverse Swallow with Lateral Lisp?
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Our SLPAs see artic kids for 5-7 minute every day. Some of the kids with frontal lisps also have reverse swallow patterns (tongue thrust swallow, infantile suckle-swallow patterns). Should the SLPAs work on this too? Will these kids fix their lisps without it?
Yours is the question I hope the 21st century will answer!
I personally do not think that SLPs or SLPAs who are not trained in teaching the correct swallow have any business working on it with their articulation students. However, I also have found that some frontal lisps are almost “un-fix-able” without it.
Therefore when you work in the schools you have the dilemma you described.
Honestly I do not know what to tell you.
I do know this, however: The frontal lisp is all about the tongue not stabilizing in the back at the lateral margins. I will write more about lingual stability in my upcoming book, The Marshalla Guide.
Can you comment on how you would work on a reverse swallow?
Asking “How do you work on a reverse swallow?” is like asking “How do you do phonological therapy? or “How do you do language therapy?” It is a huge question with multifaceted answers that depend on the diagnosis. The causes of an incorrect swallow can be many and varied–from a tongue that is too small or too large, or that has a restricting frenum, to a jaw that is malformed, to a jaw that simply moves too much or too little, to a tongue-tip that is placed incorrectly. The list of causes goes on and on. In therapy one finds the cause and then designs a program that remediates it. Therapists who want to address the incorrect swallow need continuing education. Please visit the International Association of Orofacial Myologists website to get started– iaom.com