Echolalia is a term used when assessing or treating children with Autism. The term refers to the repetition or echoing of utterances, either our own or others’. It can also be echoing phrases heard on television, advertising jingles or catchy repeat phrases used in tv programmes or nursery rhymes and songs. Whilst we all use echolalia occasionally and it can be observed in typically developing children, we tend not to see/hear it beyond the age of 2.5 years old. Children with ASD, however, do use echolalia often into late childhood.
There are generally two types of Echolalia:
Immediate echolalia
Here the repeated phrases or words are produced immediately after someone has spoken the original words or within two conversational turns of the original utterance.
Delayed echolalia
The repeat echoing of the original utterance occurs sometime later, more than two conversational turns or with a much longer time delay. Due to the delay it can be hard to interpret the meaning of the echolalic utterance as it may refer to something that happened long ago and in a different context to the originally utterance.
(Stiegler, 2015, Fay 1967, Blanc 2014)
There are other unconventional speech behaviours which include:
Perseveration of Speech – persistent repetition of speech
Repetitive questioning – persisting even though answers were given
Vocalisations such as: humming, whistling, clicking, squealing etc.
Much research has gone into the meaning and treatment of Echolalia and the following list consists of possible functions that have been identified:
Information sharing
Responding to answers
Labelling
Drawing attention to self
Protesting
Requesting
Giving instructions
Self-regulation, calming
(Stiegler 2015, Prizant 1983)
Echolalia does have a function and is part of the Gestalt Learning Process (where longer units of speech are memorised and then used as a whole without the individual words being meaningful).
As a Speech and Language Therapist I promote sound and proven Intervention based on the Hanen Programme which helps provide a highly facilitative Interaction Style and I will tell you a bit more in my next blog how the “More Than Words” approach can help children with echolalia move through their Gestalt Learning into more analytic processing of language, grammar and meaning.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
I have been avoiding the use of the Empty Set approach for the longest time as I was not sure if it would work seeing that I am challenging two sounds my student struggles with at the same time. But I decided to give it a go and it works a treat!
With this approach, we use two sounds that our student is struggling with. For example, in my video this student cannot produce /sh/ and /r/. Both sounds have different rules, so I decided to contrast them with each other.
The rules of /sh/ are: no voice, air is pushed out through teeth, produced at the front.
The rules for /r/ are: use your voice, produce the sound in the middle of the mouth by shaping your tongue in a particular way.
So I chose the words ‘shoes’ and ‘ruse’ as their rules are quite different. Contrasting two sounds the student does not know has been shown to lead to greater change in the child’s articulation. And I can certainly vouch for this as my student is making the best progress with this approach.
Phonology Therapy – what is it, why and how?
Phonology is the study of the sound system of a language. It’s distinct from articulation therapy which focuses on the physical production of sounds.
Phonology therapy focuses on rules. For example, sounds that are produced at the front of the mouth, in contrast to sounds that are produced at the back of the mouth, or sounds that are produced with a long air stream: /s/ or /f/ versus short sounds like /p/ or /t/; sounds are produced with voice or without voice.
Many children, and sometimes adults, are unaware of some of the speech rules and confuse and replace individual sounds. They might say TAT instead of CAT or SIP instead of SHIP.
A quick overview of phonology approaches I use:
Minimal Pairs:
This approach is good for single sound substitutions. We offer word pairs that differ by only one sound, like ‘ship’ and ‘sip.’ One of our first goal in therapy is to highlight the difference between the target sound (e.g., /sh/) and the sound the child uses (e.g., /s/). This helps discriminate and eventually produce the correct sound.
Multiple Oppositions:
A child might replace lots of sounds with a single sound like a /d/. So instead of ‘four’, ‘chore’ and ‘store’ our child says ‘door’, making speech very unintelligible.
The approach is typically geared towards shaking up the phonological system. Our goal is to choose two to four targets that are different from each other, and different from the substituted sound. If our child’s favourite sound is /d/ they can use their voice and make a short sound by stopping their airflow. So I will choose a different target sound to change up the speech system. For example I might choose an /f/, a /m/ and a /k/ sound. So I would contrast: ‘door’ with ‘four’, ‘more’ and ‘core’.
Maximal Oppositions:
In the Maximal Oppositions approach the treatment sets consists of words that are minimally contrasted and that have maximal or near maximal feature differences between each word pair. One word in a pair represents a sound the child ‘knows’ (can say at word level) and the other represents a sound the child does not know (cannot say).
For example, a child may ‘know’ /m/ and be able to say words like ‘man’, ‘mat’ and ‘mine’. However, the same child may be unable to say /f/ as in ‘fan’, ‘fat’ and ‘fine’. The consonants /f/ and /m/ are maximally opposed as follows.
I am always delighted to work on speech sound disorders, I love the challenge and the successes we can celebrate together. Get in touch with me!
Sonja McGeachie
Early Intervention Speech and Language Therapist
Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice
The London Speech and Feeding Practice
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
You have heard strategies from so many different people, you are confused by which you should use with your child. You’ve ended up not using any strategies to support speech and language development because you don’t know where to start. Let me ease your overwhelm and take you through the Observe, Wait and Listen (OWL) strategy, which you can use with any child of any age.
Our goal is to allow children to engage with us, to have that moment of 1:1 shared experience, a moment of curiosity, a moment you can share together. The OWL strategy aims to provide exactly that! The use of ‘observe, wait and listen’ generates spontaneity. After all, we want our children to be able to communicate in all different environments, in a way that is appropriate for different situations and not just the therapy setting.
The OWL strategy
The OWL strategy allows you to gain a connection with your child. But you might be left wondering what each of the stages mean. Let’s explore this further.
Observe: You observe your child carefully, paying close attention to what they say or do.
Wait: You wait. This allows your child time to initiate an interaction or show an interest. Waiting is more difficult than you think. Try practicing this technique for 5-10 seconds. It’s surprising how long it is. Remember silence is golden!
Listen: Listen to your child and respond appropriately. This is instead of thinking about what you are going to say next.
One of my top tips is to choose a time in the day to practice the OWL strategy. This could be as little as 3 minutes in the day. Little and often is best practice for success.
Alongside the OWL strategy, you can copy what your child is doing with respect and enthusiasm. The most important thing to take away from this blog is that you’re making no demands on your child and that it’s all about having fun on a regular basis! Start using the OWL strategy today, it’s never too late to begin!
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
What do we offer our babies from 0–3 months old? What toys? What are the best early activities for our baby to develop? I get asked this a lot so here are my suggestions.
You are the best toy
You the parent or the caregiver are the BEST toy a baby could have in the first three months. The most important thing is to talk and sing to your baby, to look and hold your baby and offer your face and voice! Use sing song intonation as much as you can, and as often as possible. We know that babies respond really well to interesting voices, singing or funny sounds. Use your facial expressions!
It is important to encourage early turn taking: leave pauses in between what you say or sing to allow your baby to respond to you. Once you see any signs of your baby responding you continue as if you are having a conversation.
We know that baby’s eyesight still needs to develop in those first months and that a newborn can only distinguish light, shapes and faces. And their distance vision is blurry in the first month. A baby can see up to 15 cm away and this is roughly the distance between the feeders’ face when bottle or breastfeeding the baby.
Black and white
Your baby can see black and whiteand some shades of grey. So, in the first month you really will need no toys at all other than your face and your voice, your smile, giggle and your hands! Of course, there are a range of black and white visual toys available these days like the ones below. But if you are on a budget, I would say you don’t need those.
From the second to third month a baby can begin to follow objects with their eyes. They recognise a familiar face and now they start reaching for things. Their colour vision is also gradually improving.
Baby gym
One of the best early toys is a ‘baby gym’ where bright and colourful toys dangle off foam padded arches. You can sometimes get ones with a mirror hanging off one of the arches or a mirror sewn into the mat. This is useful as baby likes to look at his/her face at around three months old and this can also be great for tummy time. If you are on a budget this would be the one toy, I would recommend you to get.
If there is no mirror on your baby gym you could get a mirror toy. There are lots out there, this one is a good example. I would probably get a mirror toy that has other sensory components attached so you get more value for money, i.e., three toys in one.
O-ball
Another great toy to get around 2–3 month is an O-ball for easy grasping, bright colours, very lightweight.
Sounds
Lovely early toys are sound makers, bells or rain makers. Some very light weight bells can be attached to your baby’s ankles and they ring every time your baby moves his/her legs. This is a nice and easy introduction to early cause and effect understanding.
Peek-a-boo
A great early game is Peek-a Boo and you could complement your hands hiding your eyes with some nice lightweight pieces of material like a piece of organza veil fabric for example. An added benefit is that later on baby can try and grasp the materials and pull them out of the container.
Music
Music is very important. Turn on the radio to classical or any easy listening station you like. If nothing else you could sing of course! And do not worry about not hitting the right notes your baby won’t judge you (until they are about three years old!)
At the end of three months your baby is likely to show you the following:
makes cooing and early babbling sounds
seems to know your face
smiles at you socially
cries for different needs: hungry, bored, needing attention, looking for you
opens and closes hands to try and grasp items
takes swipes at dangling
kicks his/her legs
looks at faces and toys, lights
turns his/her head towards sounds
starts to understand the world around him/her.
Don’t panic!
But don’t panic at all if you feel your baby has not quite mastered any of those stages. Chances are they are doing so very soon. If you are worried, please do come and bring your baby to our clinic for a screen and we will give you plenty of assurance and ideas on how to help your baby move forward.
On a final note, Early Intervention is key and bringing your baby for a one-off consultation to a speech and language specialist is always a great idea, just to get ideas, to see that baby is on track and to help baby develop.
The earlier you bring your baby the better. Chances are one consultation is all you need and perhaps a six-monthly review to just stay nicely on track.
Look out for my next Ages and Stages from three to six months old!
Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice
The London Speech and Feeding Practice
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
Between 9 and 18 months, your little one undergoes a remarkable transformation, blossoming from a curious explorer into a budding communicator. This period is filled with exciting milestones in speech, language, and social development. Let’s delve into what you can expect.
9–12 months: The world opens up
Communication takes flight
Babbling becomes more complex with a wider range of sounds. By babbling we mean syllables like: pa ga ka ma da and then ‘baba’ gohgoh’. First we hear one and two syllables together and then longer and longer strings! This is so exciting!
First words! One day around the 12 months–14 months mark we hear a first word! My older son’s first word was ‘Licht’ which is the German word for ‘light’ as literally every time I carried him along the corridors in our home, I pointed out the light switches to him and turned them off and on a few times. And each time I said ‘Licht!’ and it stuck! PS: sadly I cannot remember what my younger son’s first word was… poor second and third babies they just have to muddle along and call loudly to get noticed!
Understanding grows! Baby now understands simple instructions like ‘where is your ball’ and responds by looking to the ball across the room!
Social butterflies
Your baby now starts to show interest in other children, and may try to copy their actions. Now we are getting proper traction with simple social games like peek-a-boo and patty-cake. Whilst your baby is generally interested in other people and children he or she may show separation anxiety when mum or dad or other familiar person suddenly leaves the room and they feel alone with strangers.
Fine motor skills
Pincer grasp develops. This is where your child puts an index finger to the thumb in order to pick up of small objects, hold them and transfer them to either a box, back on the floor or into the other hand.
Your baby may start to explore objects by banging, shaking, and mouthing.
12–15 months: Words are taking shape
Language explosion: From our early words we now suddenly see baby’s vocabulary expanding, with new words added each week. I would highly recommend parents keep a little journal of all the words they hear. If nothing else this is a wonderful aide-memoire for years down the road when you might like to reminisce about the first ten words. I promise you otherwise you won’t recall! (especially for second and third babies; I would do this now, had I the time again).
Understanding grows:
By about 15 months our baby can follow simple two-step instructions like ‘Go get your shoes and bring them here.’
Begins to understand the concept of ‘no.’ and that’s a very useful thing. Though before you breathe a sigh of relief… your toddler may well show you that he is understanding a ‘no’ though he may not stop doing what he is doing or come down off the table!
Playtime gets interactive:
Now we engage in more complex play, such as stacking blocks, pretending to eat with a spoon, and imitating actions.
Many toddlers now start showing an interest in picture books.
15–18 months: Communication blossoms
Words combine: Towards 18 months or around about then your toddler may start to put two words together, such as ‘more milk’ or ‘bye-bye dada.’
Gestures and sounds: Now we also use gestures to communicate, such as pointing, shaking head ‘no,’ and waving ‘bye-bye.’
Exploration and curiosity:
Your toddler is now EVERYWHERE! Turn your back and he or she is gone! Your toddler now shows a strong sense of curiosity and explores their environment with enthusiasm.
Copying
Look out for actions and gestures your toddler will copy such as clapping hands or patting a cushion or banging a spoon on the table .
Remember
Every child develops at his or her own pace.
These are just general guidelines, and some children may reach certain milestones earlier or later than others.
If you have any concerns about your child’s development, please consult with your speech and language therapist. We are always keen to hear from parents and happy to help promote all those lovely early skills.
General tips to encourage communication if you feel your child needs a little more help
Talk, talk, talk! Engage in frequent chatting with your child.
Listen to your child: Allow for periods of silence when playing with your child to allow them to say something or make sounds which you can then copy and respond to.
Read aloud regularly. Use books with simple words and pictures.
Play interactive games: Hickory Dickory Dock, Row Row the boat, Old McDonalds, 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed, chasing and catching, tickling games.
Respond to your child’s babbling and gestures. You can copy them or if your toddler says long strings of babbling you cannot understand you could just say: ‘Oh ok!? ‘yes that’s great!’ ‘who knew!’ ‘wow you’ve got much to say!’ as if you understood.
Limit screen time or if your child is very passionate about watching clips then sit and watch with your child so that you can see what is the best bit, which songs they like the best and what sort of phrases they love hearing.
This exciting period of rapid growth and development is a precious time for both you and your child.
By providing a loving, stimulating, and responsive environment, you will naturally nurture their communication skills! Any more questions, please get in touch!
Sonja McGeachie
Early Intervention Speech and Language Therapist
Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice
The London Speech and Feeding Practice
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
What is Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and what does a Speech Therapist do?
Speech and language therapists provide treatment, support and care for children and adults who have difficulties with communication, eating, drinking and swallowing. We help children and adults who have problems speaking and communicating.
How to find the perfect therapist for my child/client:
There are a huge number of speech and language difficulties, or feeding and swallowing problems that we can help with and the first thing to think about is what age group the person is you are seeking help for. Most SLT’s specialise in a range of disorders and treatments and they often treat specific age ranges. This could be, for instance, very young children up to 3 years, or school aged children, adolescents or just adults. Once you have narrowed it down to age and general area of difficulty you can then go and seek your perfect SLT match.
Generally it is my view that SLT’s with a narrow area of specialist interest are most likely to help you better if the problem you or your child/adult is having is significant and/or profound. For example, if your child has a very severe stutter/stammer but is otherwise developing fine and has good skills all round, then I would recommend to look for an SLT who only specialises in stammering/stuttering, or has only a small range of other specialist areas related to stammering , such as speech and language delay.
The reason is that it is a tall order for any professional to stay up to date with latest research, latest clinical developments and training for more than, say, five distinct areas of interest.
However, a more generalist Speech therapist who has lots of experience in many different areas could be a very good option for your child or adult who has more general speech and language delay in a number of areas, perhaps a global delay or a syndrome which means that their learning is delayed in general. It also means that your child might benefit from a Generalist SLT because they have many more tools in their SLT bag and your child might need a variety of approaches for several areas.
A good place to start is www.asltip.com which is the Association for Independent Speech and Language Therapists in the UK. Any SLT registered with ASLTIP will also be registered with the HCPC (Health Care Professionals Council), as well as RCSLT (Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists). These two important UK professional regulatory bodies ensure all its members are fully qualified, and are fully up to date with latest developments within their areas of work.
Here you can enter your post code and look for a therapist near you and you can look for specific problems such as stammering for example and narrow down your search. Most therapists have a website which you can then access too. I would recommend you speak to a few therapists on your list and then go with the person you had the best rapport with. You and the therapist will be spending a lot of time together and you will need to feel that you trust them and that you can relax into the process.
How I can help you:
I have 3 main areas of specialism:
Parent Child Interaction Coaching
This is an amazing way to help children with the following difficulties:
Social Communication Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disordersand
Speech and Language Delay – for children under the age of 4 years old, this is my preferred way of working because it is so very effective and proven to work. If your child is not developing words or not interacting, has reduced attention and listening and you feel is not progressing or, in fact even regressing, then this way of working is the best. For anyone wanting to read a bit more about the efficacy of this method, below are some research articles. You may also like to check out www.hanen.org which is the mainstay of my work and method when it comes to Parent-Interaction Coaching. You can also look at my latest blog, entitled: Tele-therapy, does it work?
In brief, what’s so great about Parent Coaching is that it empowers you the parent to help your child in daily life! This is where speech, language and social communication develop typically, in a naturalistic way and environment. Simple steps and strategies are discussed and demonstrated every week and you are encouraged to use these strategies with your child in daily routines: getting dressed, having breakfast, on the school run, whilst out in the park or shopping or simply playing at home or having dinner or bath time. Whatever your family routine happens to be, every strategy I teach you will help create a responsive communication environment; generally, if your child is able to develop speech then they will do so in direct response to your changed interaction style.
Speech Sound Disorders, Verbal Dyspraxia, Phonology and Articulation
I love working with children of all ages on developing their speech sounds. Whether your child has a lisp, or a couple of tricky sounds they simply cannot produce quite right, or perhaps your child is really unintelligible because he/she is having lots of different sound errors, making it really hard to understand them. I typically work on getting “most bang for your buck” , meaning I address the sounds that cause the most problems and, therefore, when they are fixed your child/person’s speech becomes that much clearer fairly quickly.
Feeding and Swallowing Difficulties
Having worked for over 20 years in NHS Child Development Clinics and Special Needs Schools I trained and worked with feeding and swallowing difficulties early on in my SLT career. I later trained as a Lactation Consultant and so I am well placed helping and support all types of Infant feeding, both breast or bottle, as well as toddler weaning. I aim to ensure that your little one swallows the right kind of foods and drinks for their abilities. I am experienced in managing and supporting children with physical needs and mobility problems, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome or any other type of syndrome or presentation.
What does a speech therapy session look like?
All sessions differ slightly depending on the age of the child and the nature of the difficulties.
However, mostly our sessions look like FUN! After arrival and washing hands we tend to start off with the tricky work straight away whilst our child still has energy and the will to engage. So, for speech work we will focus on the target sounds first: this could be sitting at a table doing work sheets together, playing games using the target sound and really any type of activity that gives us around 70-100 repeats of the target pattern. For example, a child who is working towards saying a ‘K’ at the end of the word I will try and get around 100 productions of words like: pack/sack/lick/ pick/bike/lake and so on.
Then we often play a fun game where I might try for a ‘rhyming’ activity or other sound awareness type activities, for perhaps 10 minutes and within that time I aim to trial the next sound pattern we need to improve on; I will test which sound your child can do with help from me. During he last 10 minutes we might look at a book, again listening to and producing whatever sound we are working on. If I did not get 100 sounds earlier on in the session I will try and practice them now as part of the story. In total I aim to have about 40-45 minutes of activities, all aimed at the target sound we are working on.
What does a Coaching session look like?
During a Parent Coaching Session we meet online for about an hour and we discuss how the week has been for you trying out the strategies. Typically parents start off recalling what went well, what progress was made and what had been more tricky. We work through it all, and then follow on to the next strategies: I will show you examples and demonstrations of each strategy and I will get you to think about how you can use this with your child and in what situation you might use it. I will explain what we are doing and what the purpose is. You might want to write down what you are going to work on for the week. Over the course of about sessions we can cover all the major strategies that are proven to help kickstart spoken language and/or help your child to connect more with you. Through that connection spoken words most often develop.
Research Papers on the Efficacy of Parent Child Interaction Coaching
The It Takes Two to Talk Program has been shown to be effective in changing how parents interact with their children, and that children’s communication and language skills improve as a result.
Baumwell, L.B., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S. & Bornstein, M.H. (1997). Maternal verbal sensitivity and child language comprehension. Infant Behavior and Development, 20(2), 247-258.
Beckwith, L. & Cohen, S.E. (1989). Maternal responsiveness with preterm infants and later competency. In M.H. Bornstein (Ed.). Maternal responsiveness: Characteristics and consequences: New directions for child development (pp. 75-87). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Is early intervention effective? (Publication No. (CDH) 74-25). Washington, DC: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Child Development.
Girolametto, L. (1988). Improving the social-conversational skills of developmentally delayed children: An intervention study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 53, 156-167.
Sonja has been a real help for my 5 year old daughter. Due to her support, my daughter is now able to clearly and correctly enunciate ‘th’ ‘f’ and ’s’. She was also helpful in making positional changes to her seating to help her concentrate better and kept her engaged throughout all the lessons which is a feat in itself on zoom!
Helen, Mother of Catherine Age 5.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
Over the years I have created my unique style of remediating an Interdental Lisp and as part of my treatment I sometimes use an Orthodontic Tool, called the ‘MUPPY’, which I purchase directly from Germany. I first discovered it some years ago when working with a child with Down Syndrome. Back then I was searching for additional support with my student’s jaw grading and mouth closure difficulties and that’s when I first came across this little tool as recommended by one of my colleagues, a specialist orthodontist in Germany.
I was a bit sceptical at first but I have used it now many times for three years on a variety of clients with varying degrees of lisps. I find it really helps together and in addition to all my other techniques which are language and motor based.
How do I use it?
The MUPPY is a custom-made mouth plate that gently repositions the tongue, encouraging correct tongue placement for clearer speech. It sits comfortably between the lips and teeth; a thin wire sits right behind the teeth, inside the oral cavity.
The plate I like to use for lisp correction has a pearl in the middle. As soon as it is in situ the tongue starts fishing for the pearl and thereby keeps on moving up towards the correct place on the hard palate, just behind the front teeth. This is the place where the tongue tip needs to be for all the alveolar sounds our students find so hard to make.
How does this help reduce a lisp?
A lisp results mainly from incorrect tongue placement during sound production – though at times atypical dentition also contributes to the problem. Specifically, an interdental lisp occurs when the tongue protrudes between the teeth during the production of sounds like /S/ and /Z/. The tongue is often described by parents as ‘thrusting forward’ but I find that is rarely the case. Most often the tongue simply protrudes forward, which is different to tongue thrusting, a more forceful and involuntary movement. Most often I see a habitual tongue protrusion not only for /S/ and /Z/ but also for /T/, /D/, /L/ and /N/. Often /SH/ and ZH/ are also affected.
To visualise this:
A correct /S/ sound looks like this: The tongue tip is raised and touches the alveolar ridge (the bony, slightly uneven ridge behind the upper teeth). The sides of the tongue touch the upper molars.
Interdental lisp: The tongue tip protrudes between the front teeth, creating a /TH/ sound.
Lateral lisp: Here the mechanics of the tongue are different. But using the MUPPY can help here too. To visualise a lateral lisp, the sides of the tongue are not raised high enough, allowing air to escape over the sides. This results in a ‘slushy’ or ‘wet’ sound.
Understanding the specific type of lisp is crucial for targeted therapy and successful correction.
The Vestibular Plate (Muppy) HELPS to guide the tongue towards the right place from where we shape the NEW SOUND.
Methods
Most important to my articulation work re lisping are the motor- and language-based techniques I use, as broadly described below:
A thorough oral examination, tongue movements, lip closure, dentition, jaw grading, breath coordination, cheek tonicity, palatal form
Discussion on awareness and motivation of child to work on their speech
Contrasting sounds at the beginning and end of words: sing vs thing / sink vs think / mess vs mesh etc to raise awareness that it matters what sounds we use in speech and that just one sound can change the meaning of a word completely
Exploring the oral cavity and thinking about all the parts of the tongue and the palate
Finding the alveolar ridge and placing the tongue there at rest
Then working towards a good baseline of the other alveolar sounds: /T/ /D/ /L/ /N/ and from there we work towards our NEW /S/ SOUND.
I use a variety of picture clues depending on what is most meaningful for my student:
The child likes a train set, I use the TIRED TRAIN SOUND.
The child knows about bike or car tyres, I use the FLAT TYRE SOUND.
With a student who loves a balloon I might use the FLAT BALLOON SOUND.
And we work our way from correct tongue placement to these long /SSSSSSSSS/ sounds with the help of these visual cues, but also gestural and hand cues such as Jane Passy’s Cued Articulation sound for /S/.
I really love helping children correct their speech sound, be it an articulatory difficulty like the lisp or a phonological difficulty such as ‘fronting’ or ‘gliding’ and I also love working with motor-based speech difficulties we see in Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Feel invited to get in touch if your child needs help in these areas.
Sonja McGeachie
Early Intervention Speech and Language Therapist
Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice
The London Speech and Feeding Practice
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
