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: Can you give me a short course on stimulating the tongue to move? This is about as short and sweet as it could possibly be–– The first thing to understand about the oral mechanism is that the muscles of the facial structures are contiguous and integral to the skin. This is different from the entire rest of the body where skin and muscles form completely separate structures. This means that tactile stimulation is the most powerful way to “wake…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I evaluated a 4;6 male with a 4mm open bite. He used a sippy-cup and pacifier. I advised to eliminate the sippy cup and pacifier, but what was noticeable on oral exam was that he had a really long tongue. Is it possible the tongue is just too large for his oral space? Is there a quantitative way to measure this? I find this to be one of those impossible-to-answer questions. We have no way of knowing clinically if…
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
Q: My adolescent client speaks while holding his tongue tensed against the roof of his mouth in an “ing” position all the time. He has had years of therapy due to hearing impairment but can not produce a T, D or N at all. Most all of my oral motor experience has been to increase strength/tone. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Ahhhhhh…. You have discovered that “oral motor” needs to be much more than simply “strengthening” the mechanism. In fact,…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Do you have any tips on how to help a student produce the Spanish R trill? Two methods I have used- Start with a lingua-labial raspberry and then have the client pull the tongue in. Say the word “butter” with a clear D– “Budder”. Say it while making the tongue-tip linger on the palate longer. There also are YouTube videos about how to do this 🙂
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My student substitutes T/K and D/G. As per suggestions on your website, I am facilitating posterior tongue elevation by using a tongue depressor and having the student push against it with the posterior part of the tongue. I have been able to elicit H but not K or G. Is H the sound you refer to as a velar fricative? I need help with this method. Let me straighten this up first- H is a glottal fricative and not…
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 been working with a child for a year and a half and R has been very resistant to improvement. I just stumbled upon a good R in STRI-words like “strike”, “stripe”. Yet he has problems doing what you call “lerring” [sliding back-and-forth between L and R]. Why do you think this is? R can be a grand mystery and you never know what pattern will cause it to sound right. Just go with whatever works. It could…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: I took your course on intelligibility and understand the importance of Long E in achieving the starting point for all vowels, but I cannot get my client to make a good E. It sounds flat. I would try this–– Have him say a big oral strong “Ah”. The tell him to “keep saying Ah” while he bites his back teeth together (or on a bitestick) Then tell him to “keep saying Ah” while he smiles broadly. Model this diphthong…
