By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have a client who uses a velar fricative for the sibilants. I was experimenting with some of your self-assessment exercises in your book Frontal Lisp, Lateral Lisp, and I noticed that as I dropped my jaw to produce /s/, the sound eventually became a velar fricative. Do you think jaw grading or stability exercises will help my client with this? Position of the tongue relative to the palate is directly related to jaw position, height, and stability as…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I notice that kids who come to me for frontal lisp often have the tongue-tip protruding on T, D, N, and L as well. Should I address these errors too? I always fix tongue-tip problems on T, D, N, and L before I work on S and Z. From a motor develop perspective, correct tongue movement on S and Z is an outgrowth of tongue movement on T, D, N, and L. There is no reason why you can’t work…
By Pam Marshalla
Sooooooooo many questions about teaching S come in that I want to take this opportunity to write out the simplest most direct method that therapists have been using since early in the 20th century. This method is reported in just about every articulation therapy textbook ever written. The oldest reference I have seen for it is Scripture (1912). Scripture’s book is one that Van Riper recommended. There are dozens of ways to do this, but this is the basic procedure––…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have a student with a frontal lisp and an anterior open bite. Can you suggest compensatory strategies to help him? If he is going to get his teeth fixed I might wait to do anything until after he teeth are fixed. If he is not going to get his teeth fixed, then the compensation simply involves getting him to produce the best sibilants he can given his dental structure. He needs to stabilize the tongue at the back-lateral…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client is 4;0 and has a combined frontal and lateral lisp. I have not taken any of your classes or read any of your books. Any suggestions as to how to proceed with treatment? I have written volumes on this topic and it is somewhat difficult to describe in a quick QA. But I will do my best. The short and sweet answer to this question as I see it is as follows (and if you have not…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client is 4;0 with a frontal lisp with a very small mandible (underbite) and chronic upper respiratory problems––congestion, nasal drip, mouth breathing, snoring, etc. He cannot breath through his nose. Do you think he is capable of learning to keep his tongue in for the sibilants given his underbite? Yours is a very common question for which we have no clear answers. In all likelihood both the under-bite and the upper respiratory problems are contributing to his speech…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have a client who has what you call an “Omni Lisp” meaning that there is no central groove at all and the air comes out the entire front of the mouth from L to R. It sounds lateral because some of the sound is. I have tried your “Long T Method” with this client but it doesn’t seem to be as effective. Have you listened to his T through the straw? I will bet it sounds flat and…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My client lowers the jaw too much when he speaks, and he has a frontal lisp. He tends to clench the jaw when I tell him to hold the jaw up. I may have taught him this when using a bite stick to position the jaw. Not sure what to do now. As you have discovered, making a strong crushing bite on a firm object is not what he needs. The term “jaw stability” does not mean “jaw rigidity.”…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I am faced with cutting my caseload down considerably due to budget cuts. We will see the more severe kids a max of one time per week, and that’s fine. However, we are being asked to cut the mild kids more, and even eliminate them from our caseloads. Do you have any ideas? Many therapists are facing this today. Here is a brainstorm I had that may get you thinking outside the box. The idea is to use four…
By Pam Marshalla
I receive many requests from adults who are seeking help for their minor articulation problems. They find me on the web and write to me asking what they should do. (Sometimes I worry these folks are secret “anti-oral-motor people” writing to catch me doing unethical therapy via email so they can shut me down somehow… That’s the paranoid side of me. But usually I believe that these are honest people who genuinely are seeking advice.) The following is a typical question…
