Every now and then we are challenged with a child who just can’t seem to produce the target sound, even when we try all our tricks. I was faced with just that the other day, as a 3 year-old has not been able to produce /t,d/ in spite of requests from her DADDY, who was GaGa!
I have used Pam Marshalla’s techniques for getting a production of /s/ from /t/ so I decided to work backwards since this little girl had an approximation of /s/. We were playing with my popular Hape’s beauty kit when Katie took off her shoes so I could “paint her Toes.” She couldn’t imitate /t/ so I just started bombarding her with /s/ sounds as I gave her a pedicure. She kept repeating and then I changed to a /ts/ with lots of emission of air and eventually moved to /t/. Next thing you know, she was repeating /t/, /t/, /t/ as we painted her toes!
This is what continues to excite me about being a speech therapist, that I have to be creative in accomplishing goals.
