Hi,
I am an SLP in an elementary school in Virginia. I have been recently viewing your course A Three-Part Treatment Plan for Oral Placement Therapy. I have found your information to be extremely fascinating and, although I have 2 more hours, I have learned so much through your training. I do have a question. I have a 3rd grade student that is considered having a frontal lisp. He fronts many sounds. He is able to accurately produce the /s/ in conversation, when structured and prompted. However, in the course a child was mentioned that was able to accurately produce the /s/ in the structured setting, but once the setting was relaxed, she reverted back to her resting/comfortable position of frontal sounds. Being that he is a typically developing child (9 years), would the bubble blowing and/or horn hierarchy be appropriate?
My thoughts would be that I need to work on establishing tongue retraction. I am just wondering what your professional judgement would be, considering he sounds a lot like the girl that played “golf-ball air hockey” against Sara’s daughter. I appreciate any thoughts you may be able to share! Thank you so much for your time and expertise!
Hi,
Thank you so much for your interest in TalkTools.
I am so glad you are enjoying the course and learning so much. You are definitely on track with the client you are referring to. It takes a while to establish the correct resting position for the tongue. Keep in mind that this child has had his tongue in the wrong position for many years now so you are correcting a bad habit as well. It is difficult to give detailed suggestions without seeing the child but have you assessed his jaw? I would look at his jaw placement when he is producing the sound in a variety of contexts. An excellent tongue retraction exercise is also the straw hierarchy so you may want to consider adding this to his treatment plan as well.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks so much and good luck.
Whitney Pimentel