On Friday I attended a continuing education course by BER (Bureau of Education and Research) on “Practical Therapy Techniques for Persistent Articulation Errors: Frontal Lisp, Lateral Lisp and Distorted “R” by Pam Marshalla, MA, CCC-SLP. I wanted to recommend it to speech-language pathologists who work with clients who have been tough to remediate when it comes to lisps and /r/.
Pam is a well-informed, entertaining speaker who was also encouraging to SLP’s on many fronts. She outlined the path our profession has taken, with its initial emphasis on articulation, voice and fluency therapy, to the present where there is a heavy emphasis on language therapy. Even though we have come to a place where many schools don’t provide services for children with simple articulation delays (unless it is educationally significant), there are still certain kids who can’t get the /s/ or /r/ and their parents want therapy.
Pam provided a comprehensive plan to help these children, reaching back to relevant literature and techniques from the godfathers of our profession, Van Riper, Nemoy, Scripture and others, to the present with the newest articulation norms and techniques.
Pam had a private practice until recently where therapists sent her the kids that stumped them. She clearly has a wonderful manner with kids and techniques that work.
