Individuals who try to fix a lisp on their own are rarely successful. A speech therapist can provide specific exercises to help correct your lisping during one-on-one treatment sessions. Speech-language pathologists can also offer you practice techniques at home as support to help you reach your goals.
If speech therapy for your lisp didn't work in the past, fret not; we can help you resolve your frontal or lateral lisp during adulthood. A lisp can be readily corrected at any age and in as quickly as three months.
Often, kids can improve lisps on their own with a lot of practice. You can help children achieve proper tongue placement by having them close their teeth when attempting the /s/ sound. There is also a technique called the “butterfly.” When saying the s sound, have children try to lift the sides of their tongue.
A frontal protrusion lisp typically resolves on its own with time and a little practice, but a lateral omission lisp requires intervention. The good news is that speech therapy can correct both types.
Lisps can be caused by a variety of factors, including: Learning to produce the /s/ and /z/ sounds incorrectly as a child. A jaw misalignment, or problems with a person's jaw alignment. A tongue tie, which occurs when the tongue is attached to the bottom of the mouth and its movement is limited.
A lisp is a speech impediment that specifically relates to making the sounds associated with the letters S and Z. Lisps usually develop during childhood and often go away on their own. But some persist and require treatment. Another name for lisping is sigmatism.
Is a lisp a mental disorder? Like other functional speech disorders, the cause of lisps isn't always known. In these cases, a lisp would be classified as a speech delay or disorder with an unknown origin.
Speaking is considered to be a major life activity, and when it is substantially limited, speech impairment is falls within the definition of “disability” under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), and individuals living and working with speech impairments are protected against discrimination.
While speaking with a lisp is relatively common and developmentally normal for children as they learn and grow in their speech abilities if a child's lisp persists beyond the age of three, speech therapy is recommended and if a lisp is present beyond the age of seven, this can be cause for some concern.
If a child has a lateral lisp, which is definitely not considered as part of typical speech development, therapy is definitely recommended as soon as possible. At Kids Chatter, we see children as young as 3 years old for a lisp and have successfully fixed many children's lisps.
Is a lisp developmentally appropriate? Many young children do present with interdental lisps and this is considered age appropriate until approximately 4-5 years of age.
An article from Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Programs specifies several potential causes of lisping: Learning to pronounce sounds incorrectly. Jaw alignment problems. Tongue-tie, where the tongue is attached to the bottom of the mouth and movement is limited.
We've said that braces can fix a speech impediment, such as a lisp. Did you know that Invisalign can also fix a lisp? Both braces and Invisalign can straighten your teeth and improve your tongue's ability to create certain sounds, including “s, z, th” and “d.”
A lisp is a specific type of articulation problem seen in people who replace the “s” or “z” sound with a “th.” A disorder on the Autistic Spectrum. Generally considered “milder” or more “high-functioning” than classic autism.
People with ADHD have a higher risk of articulation disorders, problems with the fluency of speech, and the overall quality and tone of their speaking voice.
The most common type of lisp is the interdental lisp. The reason it's called “interdental” is because the tongue protrudes between the teeth, like this: With an interdental lisp, you'll hear more of a /th/ sound instead of an /s/ or /z/.
Many people, including both children and adults, have issues with lisping. A lisp is defined by difficulty pronouncing one or more letters resulting in the letters sounding jumbled over. Most people with a lisp have issues pronouncing an "S" or "Z" sound.
Fear of Lisp, 'parenthephobia' in Greek, is a disease that affects a large percentage of the population involved in the information technologies.
Most lisps are caused by wrong tongue placements in the mouth, which in turn obstructs air flow from the inside of the mouth, causing the distortion of words and syllables. Tongue-ties are also considered a probable cause of lisping.
Misaligned Teeth
An overbite, open bite, or space between the teeth in the upper jaw may contribute to a lisp.