A Therapy Pathway for Frontal and Lateral Speech Errors (aka “Lisps”)
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A Therapy Pathway for Frontal and Lateral Speech Errors (aka “Lisps”)

Today we’re talking about “lisps”.

But many professionals are moving away from using the term lisp because it often carries a negative or stigmatizing connotation, especially outside of clinical contexts.

Instead, we’re focusing on describing speech patterns more precisely using phonetic terms. For example:

• Frontal lisp is often described as interdental or dentalized productions of /s/ and /z/.

• Lateral lisp is often referred to as lateralized productions of /s/, /z/, and sometimes other sibilants like /ʃ/ and /ʒ/.

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and in today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, I’ll going to give you a very clear Therapy Pathway that will lay out how to treat dentalized or lateralized productions of sibilants.

Listen to the Podcast Here**

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Therapy Pathway for Dentalized or Lateralized Productions:

Here’s the plan for how to treat these speech sounds:

• Identify the type of lisp being used

• Establish correct placement and airflow for one sibilant sound (usually /s/ or /z/) in isolation.

• Expand use of that sibilant into words, phrases, sentences, and short response.

• Expand that same placement and airflow to a new sibilant sound, repeat steps 2-3.

• Continue this process until individual can say all sibilants correctly.

• Generalize to everyday conversation.

How to Establish Correct Placement and Airflow

• Find a word they can already say it in correctly

• Watch in mirror: keep tongue behind teeth

• Find “magic spot” using tactile feedback and start the sound with the tongue tip there

• ** **Start with /t/ sound, extend it out (exploding /t/)

• Use /ts/ words

• Start with “th” and pull back

• Start with “sh” and move forward

• Start with “ee” to stabilize back/sides of tongue and then slowly raise tongue tip

• Use a straw – bite tip of straw and blow /s/ into the straw

Need More Resources for Frontal and Lateral Productions?

We have therapy materials, training videos, and full therapy plans inside The Hub.

Get easy-to-follow plans that work for real kids in real sessions.

Available with the Full, Paid Hub Membership here.)

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