Lisp Speech Therapy – Tongue placement exercises to help reduce a lisp

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who has a lisp? Perhaps you have had a conversation with a person with a frontal or lateral lisp. A lisp is described as excessive air escaping from the front of the mouth when a person makes certain speech sounds. This may remind you of certain cartoon characters. Front and side lisps can be frustrating to both the listener and the speaker due to the adverse effect it can have on conversations or the messages the speaker is trying to convey.

Speakers with a lisp may have received speech therapy to correct the lisp when they were of school age. However, it may not have been much of a concern when they were children to correct their speech pattern. Therefore, as a child he did not practice the therapy techniques taught by the speech-language pathologist at his school.

Now, as an adult, he has experienced the restrictions that a frontal or lateral lisp can have on his communicative performance. Having a lisp can keep you from landing your dream job, such as a public speaker, commentator, receptionist, and other careers that require you to speak to a large number of people. Having a lisp can even be a discovery on the way out. As you can see, a lisp can have a negative impact on your overall communication performance.

You may have developed a lisp due to misalignment of your tongue or teeth. Whatever the cause, you have developed and continued a habit that is negatively impacting your speaking abilities. So how do you correct this negative habit? You can look up your old notes and techniques provided by your school’s speech-language pathologist many years ago. Or, you can see a speech-language pathologist to talk about your communication difficulty and how it has kept you from getting certain jobs. The speech-language pathologist may recommend a speech evaluation to determine the cause of your communication problem. Speech habits can be changed if you work diligently to achieve specific speech goals.

Self-development: “a personal and professional investment.”

Investing in your human communication skills can help you decrease your lisp and maximize opportunities.

Here are 6 steps that can help you reduce your lisp:

1. When your tongue is in the resting position, it should be behind your upper front teeth or lower front teeth. Your tongue should never rest between your teeth. The only time the tongue should protrude between the teeth is when producing words with the /th/ sound, such as “think” and “thank you.”

2. In the resting position, the mouth should be closed and the tongue behind the teeth or hard palate, unless there is some kind of medical condition.

3. Use a straw as much as possible to drink your beverages, however drinking through a straw can cause gas. Using a straw can help with motor movement and muscle memory. When you use a straw, your tongue should not stick out forward.

4. Practice picking up a Cheerio with the tip of your tongue and placing the Cheerio on your hard palate (the top of your mouth behind your teeth), holding it until it dissolves. This exercise is a muscle memory exercise.

5. Practice holding your tongue when you speak at all times, but not with /th/ sounds. The /th/ sound is the only sound in American English that the tongue puts between the teeth.

6. When making the /s/ sound at the beginning and end of words, practice clenching your upper and lower teeth so that your tongue does not protrude between your teeth. Remember, the only time your tongue should be between your teeth is when you are making the /th/ sound.

These exercises can reduce your lisp to a minimum, thereby reducing “noise pollution” so you can get your thought or message across effectively.

For more information on this matter, contact a speech-language pathologist to discuss the best strategies to resolve your problem.

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