Tag: Oral Motor

Facilitating Tongue-Tip Elevation

By Pam Marshalla

Q: How can I get my client to elevate the tongue-tip instead of the blade to produce lingua-alveolar phonemes? Following my 22 Fundamental Methods of Facilitating Jaw, Lip, and Tongue Movements, I would do one or more of the following: Assist – Lift the tip with a tongue depressor. Associate – Find one phoneme in which the client elevates the tip, and use that phoneme movement to teach the others. Contrast – Contrast tongue-tip elevation with tongue-back elevation. Cue –…

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Jaw Lateralization and the Lateral Lisp

By Pam Marshalla

Q: I have a kindergarten student who slides her jaw side-to-side during conversational speech, resulting in a lateral lisp. I have used a bite block program but it has not helped. She has good jaw strength. She can hold large bite blocks in her teeth bilaterally and speak without dropping them. But her speech isn’t any better. What should I do? This is not a strength problem. I am sure her oral mechanism is strong enough to support speech. This is…

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Oral Motor Treatment and Non-Speech Oral Motor Exercises (NSOME)

By Pam Marshalla

Once again I shall take a run at the question of what oral motor treatment is, and what are the differences between oral motor treatment and non-speech oral-motor exercises. This answer ensued from an email dialogue I was having with someone very concerned that SLP’s have begun to use non-speech oral-motor exercises INSTEAD of methods to facilitate sound and word productions. I tried to explain how this is wrong. ALL methods to improve speech are “oral” techniques, and they are…

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Oral Motor Goals in IEPs

By Pam Marshalla

Q: How should we write IEP goals for oral-motor? The answer I always give is: DON’T. Our goals are not to improve jaw, lip or tongue function. Our goals are to improve speech. Write SPEECH goals. Oral-motor techniques are just that: TECHNIQUES. Oral-motor techniques are used to help us achieve the speech goals we have set. For example, let’s say that we are working with a child who has no back sounds – no [k] or [g]. Our therapy techniques…

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Again: What Does Oral Motor Therapy Have To Do With Speech?

By Pam Marshalla

Q: What does oral motor therapy have to do with speech? I want to take another run at this question because it arises so often. Consider: Phonemes emerge when a child’s oral-motor control is immature. Think about [b], [d] and [g]. These early voiced stops emerge when a child is about 6 months of age. That means that the oral movements used during their production are primitive. These primitive movements refine over time. From an oral-motor perspective, we can say…

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How to Define Oral-Motor Therapy (Especially for Naysayers)

By Pam Marshalla

Q: What is oral motor therapy? How do you define it and what is its purpose? This is the definition I use: Oral-motor therapy (OMT) is the process of facilitating improved jaw, lip and tongue function. Oral-motor techniques can be used in any of the following therapies: articulation, phonology, dysphagia, feeding, orofacial myology, and occupational or physical therapy. You can discover the importance of speech movements by engaging in a simple procedure. Count aloud from one to ten. Did anything move?…

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