By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have a 3-year-old male client with apraxia. We are working on initial F. After two unsuccessful sessions where he completely shut down and did not want to speak, I took the pressure off, bombarded him with the sound, and rewarded him for placement. He ended up with a few good productions of the sound by the end of the session. The problem is that he came back to therapy today overgeneralizing the F. I was wondering if this…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I struggle with a student who can say the R sound correctly in the prevocalic position but not unless I correct her. I say, “What’s a wabbit?” and then she corrects herself. She has been in therapy for a few months. Should I film her? And what else can I do to help her? If the R sounds correct, you are doing fine! She is on her way. Filming is always a great idea to help clue kids in…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My 5-year-old has been in speech therapy since he was 2. After many years of therapy, he pronounces a word right during speech and at home speech activities and he uses them in a sentence, however he’s not carrying over with conversational speech. His SLP tells me to correct him when he says a word wrong, but I’m correcting nearly every word he says which makes him get frustrated and not even want to talk to me. I don’t…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Is there an age constraint for starting self-awareness techniques for carryover? My son is 6 years old. Carryover ideas should start right from the first day of therapy, no matter the client’s age. That means that you are planning for and thinking about and stimulating for carryover from the first day, and you are dropping in ideas here and there. For example, let’s say your child is learning to keep his tongue in his mouth. He can work on…
By Pam Marshalla
This opinion paper was originally posted as a downloadable PDF on my website, authored in mid- 2011. Download the original PDF here. *** Carryover Techniques The term carryover refers to a client’s ability to take an individual speech skill learned in the therapy room and to apply it broadly in all speaking situations. The following is an outline of the techniques presented in: Marshalla, P. (2010) Carryover Techniques in Articulation and Phonological Therapy. Mill Creek, WA: Marshalla Speech and Language. www.pammarshalla.com…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My student can do R in all words and in all positions, but he prolongs it. Do I need to teach him NOT to do this? I would teach it to him if it did not go away by itself within a reasonable period of time. I am not sure what that reasonable period of time is, but I would be willing to give him 6 months to a year to straighten this out. I probably would give him…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Do you have any suggestions for slowing the rate of speech in an elementary school child? Rate is all about the number of syllables produced per unit of time. Therefore focus on syllables. This is what I do. I call it “Pencil Talking”–– The child and I each hold a pencil with a good eraser. We engage in general conversation, or we talk about speech. We tap our erasers on the table to mark each syllable as we talk….
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I still have many high school students that have not corrected articulation errors. How long you continue to try to get these teens to carryover productions into conversation after years of no progress? I would answer your question with a series of questions to ponder about your approach to therapy with these kids. These are the things I would think about: Are you working directly on carryover activities? Are you giving them speech assignments to do outside of therapy?…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I saw a client with /r/ problems and dismissed him after he could produce /r/ with reminders on picture-naming tasks. I saw him again a year later and his /r/ had deteriorated. Should this have happened? Should I put him back in therapy, or do you think that this will take care of itself? What I have done with these kids is the following: You let him go too quickly. Never dismiss a client until the process of articulation…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: When a child can produce his new sound correctly, do we go for the next level – syllabic level – in the same session? Don’t we have to dedicate a whole session for one goal to be sure that we have achieved the desired result? I always do as much as possible in every session I have with my clients. I try to work on phoneme, syllable, word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, and conversation all in the same session if…
