Lisps and S Archives - Page 8 of 10 - Marshalla Speech & Language

Tag: Lisps and S

Frontal Lisp, Tongue Thrust, Ankyloglossia, Low Tone, and Tactile Defensive Behavior

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a 5-year-old client who has a tongue thrust on all the sibilants. She also has ankyloglossia, and is low in tone around her mouth and lips. She has a tonic bite reflex and holds her cheeks very tightly when I brush her teeth. She has sensory issues and is very uncomfortable (although cooperative) during teeth brushing. She tends to have an open mouth position and her lips are oftentimes wet. None of this affects her speech intelligibility….

Oral Stability and the Frontal Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

I receive weekly questions about the severe frontal lisp. The questions always are about how to keep the tongue inside the mouth for speech. We are talking here about the client who has: Interdental tongue placement on all the sibilants: S, Z, Sh, Zh, Ch, J Interdental tongue placement on all the lingua-alveolar sounds: T, D, N, L Open mouth resting posture Reverse swallow (infantile suckle-swallow, tongue-thrust swallow) From a motor perspective, the severe frontal lisp with interdental tongue placement…

Assessment of a Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I am scheduled to see a 14-year-old male with a lisp on /s/. He recently got braces and the dentist told his mother that the child had better see a speech language pathologist if the braces are to help at all. Can you help me organize this diagnosis? Focus on the speech first. You must know exactly what phonemes are affected. Look at ALL of them, not just /s/. Look at all the sibilants, and all other phonemes, especially the…

“Sharp” or “Whistling” /s/

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a student who has been in therapy for /s/ for a while now and, although he is able to produce the /s/ sound, his mom thinks it is now too sharp and unnatural. Do you have any advise for this? When we are talking about refining an /s/ like you describe, this all auditory work combined with subtle tongue, lip, and perhaps jaw changes. This is the essence of articulation refinement for all phonemes for all clients….

Toddlers and the Frontal Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Can you correct a frontal lisp in a toddler? We can help a child with a frontal lisp beginning at two years of age, however, most SLP’s hold off until these kids are 7, 8, or 9 years of age because of developmental norms. In a private practice, one can see these clients at any age, however one usually counsels the parents that the child does not really need therapy until later because the error is considered “normal” until…

Jaw Stabilization for the Lateral Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I am working with a first grader who completely shifts his jaw to the left when he produces lateralized “Sh” and “Ch”. I am trying to work on his jaw, but it requires me to firmly give manual jaw stabilization even in isolation. Is it possible to change this strong habit of lateralizing the jaw? You are on the right track, but you are going about it in a less-than-optimum way. When we use manual jaw stabilization like you…

Age for Frontal Lisp Therapy

By Pam Marshalla

Q: Age what age should a child with an isolated Frontal Lisp be seen for therapy? When to see a child with a frontal lisp is a controversial thing. We CAN help a child like this from the age of two and older. But most SLP’s still hold off until they are older. Most school districts do not let a child like this enter therapy until age 7, 8, or 9 years of age. In a private practice, one can…

Lateral Lisp and Dysarthria

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My client had a stroke when he was a baby, and he has both slurred speech and a lateral lisp. Do you think he can learn to develop a central groove for the sibilants? Only time will tell. In the meantime, focus your therapy less on individual phonemes and more on improving intelligibility by helping him learn to speak up, speak out, and over-exaggerate. Exaggeration is the method recommended most often for clients with dysarthria.

The Lateral “Sh”

By Pam Marshalla

Q: How do you train a midline sibilant when a client has a lateral lisp on “Sh”? There are many ways to develop a midline groove for the sibilants. The simplest way to get a midline groove for “Sh” is to use what Van Riper called the Association Method. The association method is the process of using a phoneme that the client already can produce to learn the new phoneme. The old-timers usually recommended that we use “Long E,” as in…

Three Challenges of the Lateral Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

This is a question posed to me from SpeechPathology.com as a follow-up to the on-line seminar I taught for them on the lateral lisp: What do you think is the biggest hurdle that a child with a lateral lisp faces? I think there are three really big hurtles the client and the SLP must face in changing a lateral lisp. First, the client has to learn a new motor pattern. We ask ourselves, “How can I create this new movement?”…