Hi Carrie, I have a student with nasal emission of only the /s/ and /z/ speech sounds. She just started therapy this past month, but I have tried multiple techniques (including the “T” technique) and not getting a lot of results. Before she was sent for an initial evaluation, her parents did bring her to an ENT and nothing was proven to be structurally different. Any further tips on how to elicit the /s/ and /z/ speech sound would be appreciated. Thanks 🙂 Kelly
The /t/ Technique:
- Have the child say the /t/ sound repeatedly with no nasal emission
- Once the child can consistently say the /t/ sound, have the child exaggerate the air flow at the end of the /t/. You can tell them they’re exploding the /t/ or holding it out (don’t tell them it’s an /s/ sound yet)
- Try having them say 5 /t/ sounds and then explode a 6th one or have them alternate between /t/ and the /ts/ (exploded /t/).
- Once they can do that, either gradually move that to an /s/ sound or have them practice /ts/ words like “pizza” until they can consistently get the /s/ without nasal emission and then transition to /s/ sound
More Strategies from Pam Marshalla:
https://www.pammarshalla.com/blog/2015/07/phoneme-specific-nasality/
