Teaching Your Child to Say /s/

We all know what a lisp is – but did you know there are 2 types of lisps?                                  

1.  INTERDENTAL LISP:  The child is putting his tongue between his teeth, so his ‘S’ sounds turn into ‘TH’ sounds.  How do you correct it?  Tell your child to put the tongue back behind those teeth where it belongs!  Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that.  The tongue should actually be up just above the top teeth, almost touching that bony ridge where the teeth meet the skin.  It’s called the Alveolar Ridge.   To teach them to put their tongue up there, see the ‘Sprinkler Method’ below. When I first begin to correct interdental lisps, I sometimes turn it into a game of ‘Catch the Snake’.  If their tongue peeks out between their teeth as they say a word beginning with ‘S’, my hand turns into a ‘Snake Catcher’ and pretends to grab it.  (Make sure they know this is a game!  Making funny expressions and noises as you pretend to grab it and miss always helps!)  It doesn’t take long for them to keep their tongue back in their mouth.  Then you can fine-tune the placement with the ‘Sprinkler Method’ below.

2.  LATERAL LISP:  The child’s tongue it too flat and loose, and air is escaping off the sides of the tongue rather than shooting straight out the front.  It sounds kind of slushy.  You can remind the child to keep the air coming forward ‘skinny and straight’, as you teach correct placement using the ‘Sprinkler Method’ below.

THE SPRINKLER METHOD
Here’s a fun way to teach ‘S’ that the very knowledgeable Jill Andrus at USU taught me:
Have the child make a ‘T’ sound.  Usually kids will put their tongue in the correct place (almost

touching the alveolar ridge) when they make the ‘T’ sound.  Tell them we are going to be a sprinkler.  Hold your hand out in front of you as if it’s the top of a sprinkler head.  Say ‘T’ repeatedly about 1 second apart as your hand ‘sprinkler’ jerks to the right each time.  When it gets all the way to the side, it’s time for the sprinkler to hurry back to the front.   Say the ‘T’ sound as fast as you can as your hand comes back to the front, until it blends into an ‘S’ sound.  The idea is to teach the child that the ‘S’ sound is made in the same place as the ‘T’ sound – except you don’t touch the alveolar ridge completely and the air escapes out the front.

Once they get the hang of where the ‘S’ sound should be made, you can drill it by having them say words beginning with ‘T’ and then ‘S’ quickly:  ‘Tam, sam, tam, sam, tam, sam’.   They shouldn’t have time to change their tongue position between ‘tam’ and ‘sam’, and so that can also help them to keep their tongue in the right place.

Don’t expect your child to be an expert ‘S’ maker overnight!  It takes some time for them to change their old tongue habits during everyday speech.  But with practice, they’ll eventually get it right!

Good luck!