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