Bethany Discussion Forums

Hi Everyone!
My daugher, Jessica just started speech therapy in school. This is a child, who when she was not quite 2 years old, turns to me in the Doctor's office and says, "Mom, Let's get out of here! I have never worried about her speech.

Jessica has a habit of talking with her tongue going forward. It is mostly in casual speech. She has therapy 2x a week.
Anyone have experience with this type of problem?
Pat

Dear Pat:

Hi! I'm new to this forum, but saw your post and wanted to let you know I am a speech therapist familiar with tongue thrust in children (who's also looking to adopt a child )

Tongue thrust therapy is usually for the purposes of decreasing a child's habit of sticking ("thrusting) her tongue through her teeth on sounds requiring airflow, such as "j", "sh", "s", "ch", "z", etc. It's usually most noticeable on "s" sounds and sounds like what people call a lisp (i.e. "Thun" for "sun" or "theven" for "seven")

It may occur in the presence of language deficits (like a poor vocabulary or a difficulty expressing thoughts or ideas) or it may occur completely in the absence of any difficulty with language at all. Some of the most severe tongue thrusters on my caseload have great language skills.

You always have the choice of refusing speech therapy services if you feel they are unnecessary or are interfering with school time. The usual reason for seeing "tongue thrusters" in therapy is to: 1. improve the speech pattern (make it more "normal) and 2. decrease the chances of problems with reading readiness skills, such as being able to identify a letter with its sound. For example the letter 's' has the sound "ssssss", not the sound "th".

I know it can be overwhelming to have a child in therapy and often school personnel are busy and parents can sometimes feel like they've been rushed into a decision about therapy. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Best Wishes

Tisha Guenther

Tisha,
Thanks for your input on speech therapy for tongue thrust. I would love to talk to you by email. Our school speech therapist is a recent grad and doesn't have experience with this.
Pat

Dear Pat:

Usually, recent graduates are closely supervised by an accredited speech therapist. There is, however, a serious shortage of qualified speech therapists nationally.

My e-mail is Tishslp@familink.com. I'd be happy to chat with you whenever you want

Have a great day

Smiles,

Tisha

Pat,
Both of our son's are in speech therapy for very different reasons and both have HUGE vocabularies. They just do not have the quality articulation due to their issues and were very hard to understand by anyone who did not know them well and were used to how they talked. they are both doing great in ST but have a ways to go.

When I was in preschool I was taking speech therapy. I vaguely remember being sat infront of a mirror and making funny faces at myself I remember it being fun. Now I honestly believe if it wasn't for speech therapy when I was younger I'd would have had lots of embarrassing moments when I was older. (Bad enough I had a southern accent.) . My mom had a hard time excepting the fact I had an speech impediment and I also had problems with reading etc..I refused to read until I was in the forth grade.((out loud))