The adult began to lisp. How to get rid of lisp: effective methods

In this article we will talk about a common violation of sound pronunciation - lisp. Let's figure out what it is - " lisp”, what types of this violation exist and how to overcome this problem.

The concept of lisp means the incorrect pronunciation of hissing sounds - W, Zh, Ch, Shch, the scientific name is sigmatism of hissing sounds.

Before talking about the types of lisping, it is necessary to dwell on how hissing sounds are normally pronounced. The sounds "w, w" appear by 4.5 - 5 years and, unfortunately, are very often pronounced incorrectly. Since they differ only in sonority (“sh” is deaf, and “zh” is voiced), they are almost always violated by a pair. The sounds "h, u" are broken much less often, as a rule they are either replaced by other sounds (h-t, u-s), or pronounced with excessive rounding of the lips.

In order to pronounce "w, w" it is necessary to make the tongue wide in the shape of a cup and lift it up, while the lateral edges of the tongue should be pressed against the molars. The teeth are close together, and the lips are slightly rounded. If the tongue does not rise very well, the muscle tone is disturbed (the tongue is sluggish or overly tense) and it is held wide at the top and it is still difficult to blow up, then a lisping pronunciation appears. In addition, an incorrect bite can lead to lisping, especially if there is a large distance between the upper and lower teeth and the teeth do not close (anterior open bite or prognathism). In addition to a distorted lisping pronunciation, there are:

  • Omissions of sound w, w - hat - apka, beetle -uk;
  • Replacing sh, w with sounds s, z - a hat-hoe, a beetle - a beetle.

If a child under 5 years old does not pronounce hissing sounds or replaces them with whistling ones, then the correct sh, w can still appear in speech on their own, provided that all other sounds are correctly pronounced. But if the child began to pronounce hissing incorrectly, then this is already a lisp and, alas, it will not disappear on its own.

Lisping when pronouncing the sounds w, w is most often manifested in the following variants:

  • Labio-dental - with this type of lisp, the lower lip approaches the upper incisors, a sound is pronounced close to the sound F (ball - headlights).
  • Toothed - the tip of the tongue rests on the cutting edges of the upper and lower teeth (incisors, the sound is obtained, similar to t, d - ball - tar, beetle-tuk.)
  • Lateral - with this option, the tip of the tongue or half of it is pulled to the side, a squelching sound appears.
  • Buccal pronunciation - the cheeks swell and this causes noise, while the tongue lies at the bottom of the mouth.
  • Nasal pronunciation - a nasal pronunciation is heard, as with a runny nose, i.e. the soft palate does not work enough.
  • Softened sound Ш - the sound is pronounced softly, similar to u.

If parents suspect that the child is lisping, then at the age of 5 it is reasonable to come for a consultation with a speech therapist who will tell you if there is a lisp and, if there is a problem, will help to overcome it.

Lisping in adults

In adults, lisping is quite common; after burr, this is the second most common speech disorder that speech therapists turn to. The practice of speech therapy shows that not only can lisping be corrected in adolescents and adults, but it is also possible to do it quite quickly. At the consultation, the speech therapist will determine the type of lisp, find the cause of the problem (which muscles of the tongue do not work well, etc.) and help you learn how to pronounce complex sounds correctly.

If lisping prevents you from speaking and feeling confident, we are waiting for you at our center, where experienced speech therapists will help you solve this problem.

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In this article, I want to talk about a speech defect, all known as lisping, which many people try to present as a sign of individuality, but in my opinion, lisping is more of an unwillingness to deal with one's own problems. If lisp interferes with life, then it is necessary to get rid of it if possible, especially since it is often quite realistic to do this, and at the end of the article I will tell you how to do it.

Why do adults pronounce certain sounds incorrectly?

Sometimes this habit stretches from childhood. Not all parents are concerned about the child's incorrect speech, and they do not always show it to speech therapists. The habit of lisping is firmly rooted, and over the years it becomes more and more difficult to get rid of it, since adults already have an increased tone of the muscles of the pharynx, and in order to “pull” them into the channel of the desired articulation, and get rid of difficult speech, it will take painstaking and long work. Answering the question of how to get rid of lisping and prevent its occurrence, pediatricians always advise paying attention to children's speech defects in time and taking timely measures to get rid of such defects.

One of the reasons for the habit of lisping is the structure of the speech apparatus and malocclusion. You can also “earn” a lisp by experiencing severe stress, fear, or suffering from poor coordination of hearing and voice. It should be noted that people with such a disorder become more withdrawn over time, avoid society and constantly control themselves. Over the years, this can lead to the risk of neurosis and complexes.

So, how do you stop lisping?

Of course, consultations with a speech therapist will not be superfluous here, since experts in their field will always help you choose an individual course for speech training. Taking into account the specifics of each individual case, doctors select the appropriate groups of words, phrases and tongue twisters.
When deciding to get rid of the habit of lisping on your own, without the help of a speech therapist, you need to take as a basis a few key points:
With lisping, it is necessary to check how correctly and rhythmically nasal breathing works - because it is precisely because of difficulty breathing through the nose that a person gets into the habit of starting to breathe through the mouth, while the muscles of the tongue become sluggish, and the sound “s” turns into “w” when pronouncing it.

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Lisping Exercises

There are a couple of topical corrective exercises to eliminate lisping:

  • Opening the mouth, it will be necessary to put forward and put the tongue on the lower lip. Then say “la-la-la”. When doing this exercise, you need to make sure that the tip of the tongue touches the corners of the mouth. This will help tighten the muscles and give them elasticity.
  • Also, by slightly opening your mouth, you can give the tongue the shape of a cup, so that later it will be easier to pronounce problematic letters.

First you need to fix individual sounds aloud, or even better in a singsong voice. Then, having achieved the result, begin to get rid of lisping in syllables, short words and phrases. After in complex words and tongue twisters.
I strongly recommend that you use voice recording of exercises to consolidate lessons on getting rid of speech defects in order to visually check your progress in correct pronunciation.

Here are a couple more original exercises to improve diction, and not only:

Exercise "Cork"

"Mouthless Conversation"

Lisp itself does not cause physical harm, but it may well become a cause of ridicule and bullying. Fortunately, there are ways to deal with it and learn how to pronounce the sounds properly. Lisp is treated under the supervision of a speech therapist, and there are already ways to get rid of the problem in a week or two!

Steps

Treatment of frontal lisp

    The following exercise will help if you pronounce the English sound "TH" instead of "S" or "Z". The sound TH, of course, has no direct analogue in Russian, so we will describe it as something in between F, D and T. So, with a frontal lisp, a person, pronouncing the sounds "C" or "Z", puts his tongue between his teeth, because of which he pronounces the sound "TH". If a person has a gap between the front teeth, then he can reflexively rest his tongue against it, as if pushing it between the teeth. If you're not sure if this applies to you, try saying the "S" or "Z" sounds in front of a mirror.

    • With a frontal lisp, the sound "C" will be similar to the sound "TH" as it is heard in the English word "math" (mathematics), and the sound "З" - like "TH" in "father" (father.)
  1. Smile in front of a mirror. Stand in front of a mirror in a brightly lit room - this will allow you to clearly see your own mouth while articulating sounds. Smile in the mirror, showing your teeth. All this will allow you to observe yourself with greater ease, and pull your tongue a little back in the mouth - and this is exactly what is needed for the sound “s”.

    Lower the teeth of the upper jaw on the teeth of the lower. Keep your jaws in such a way that the teeth are touching each other, but do not stop smiling. Of course, you don't have to clench your jaw.

    Bend your tongue the way it should be in order to pronounce the "S" sound correctly. To do this, you need to move the tongue so that its tip is behind the teeth, just below the palate. Do not press your tongue to your teeth, do not strain it.

    Exhale through your mouth without opening it. If you didn't hear the hissing "C" sound, then your tongue is probably still farther than it should be. Try to bend your tongue back, as if without ceasing to smile. If it doesn't work out, don't worry - try the next exercise and practice more often.

    Try to pronounce the sound "IIT", paying attention to the shape of the tongue. If the sound "s" is difficult for you even with the above exercise, try this one more thing: slightly open your jaws, press the sides of your tongue against your upper back molars (far teeth on top), smile and try saying "IIT", trying to keep the back tongue in the same position while the tip of the tongue is lifted to articulate the final "T" sound. If the back of the tongue seems to fall down, then practice saying “IIT” in this way until it stops.

    • The sound "IIT" can be found in the English words "sleet" or "meet."
    • If you find it difficult to keep the back of your tongue elevated, use a tongue holder or something similar while you say "IIT".
  2. Turn the sound of IIT into IIT, and then into IIS. When you learn how to pronounce "IIT" with your tongue correctly, begin to draw out the "T" sound. Hold the tip of your tongue exactly where the "T" sound begins: "T-T-T-T-T-T." A stream of air flowing past the tip of the tongue can turn this sound into a "C". Practice until you get first the sound “IITS”, and then “IIS” - and you don’t have to hurry, it’s not at all necessary that everything worked out on the same day ..

    • Yes, droplets of saliva can fly out of your mouth during this exercise!
  3. Train more often. Perform these exercises at least once a day, but it is better, to be sure, more often. When you can say the "S" sound several times in a row, start saying the words and sentences where it occurs. It will be easier to first work out the pronunciation of syllables with this sound in general, only then move on to ordinary words.

    Exhale air through your mouth while holding your tongue in this position. Yes, yes, a butterfly. Exhale the air exactly as your strengthened tongue allows. Now you should get a sound that is much more reminiscent of "C". If you blow with special zeal, then you get a "Z" at all.

    Practice until you can pronounce the sound "S" without problems. Blow your tongue into a butterfly every day and practice blowing out the "S" sound. Do not forget: relaxed the tongue - bent the tongue, and all this behind the teeth. Try to articulate the sound "C", and the stronger your tongue becomes, the clearer and more correct this sound will be.

    Seek help from a speech therapist. If after a few weeks you still have problems, see a specialist. He will be able to provide you with exercises aimed at correcting your particular problem.

Treatment of lisp in young children

    Learn more about the characteristics of lisp in children. As a rule, we are talking about frontal lisp, that is, a problem associated with the fact that the child sticks out his tongue too far, trying to pronounce the sound "S". For many children who lisp, the problem resolves itself with age. In other cases, the question arises of when to go to a speech therapist: at four and a half years old or at seven years old. Only a speech therapist can give an exact answer to this question, but remember that there is nothing wrong with a four and a half year old child lisping.

    • If your child suffers from another form of lisp, in which the tongue is deeper than it should be, consult a speech therapist.
  1. Don't focus on the problem. Focusing on the lisp over and over again can make the child feel out of place, which obviously won't help solve the problem.

    Treat allergies and sinus problems. If a child often has a stuffy nose or other sinus problems, this can also have a negative impact on his speech, which is especially true in the context of sounds that require moving the tongue forward (and this is not just “S”). Seek advice from a specialist in the relevant field.

Lisping is a speech disorder, a type of sound pronunciation disorder. Manifested in the difficulty of reproducing whistling and hissing sounds. Often the defect disappears at the age of five, after the development of the articulatory apparatus. But there is no guarantee in this. Therefore, when a child lisps strongly, start doing exercises to develop the organs of speech.

We treat lisp from childhood

It is believed that if a child lisps up to five years, it should not cause concern. Besides, the little lisping baby looks so cute! Now imagine that this is a 16-year-old girl at school, an adult woman in the office. Most likely, she will not be comfortable communicating with people, making acquaintances. The same goes for men. Lisp affects the future lifestyle and interferes with achieving goals. A person is simply embarrassed to speak, express ideas, opinions.

It is naive to expect until 5-6 years that the defect will go away by itself. When this does not happen, too much falls on the child - after all, it's about to go to school. The usual children's day is disrupted by trips to dentists, speech therapists, defectologists, endless workouts at home. There are all the prerequisites for emotional burnout: stress, overwork, the demands of adults. There are fears that speech will not be corrected, classmates will laugh, and the fear of school is formed accordingly.

The sooner treatment for lisp in a child is started, the better.


Causes of lisp

First, visit a speech therapist. He will conduct a thorough examination and suggest the appropriate treatment. Depending on when the child is very lispy, it will be corrected by a dentist, a surgeon, an otolaryngologist. You can eliminate the disease by finding out its cause:

  • Heredity;
  • Pathology of the organs of speech. Are congenital;
  • Facial trauma;
  • neurological disorders;
  • The maxillofacial apparatus is improperly developed. It is reflected in the bite, palate, diastema;
  • Copying speech patterns. The child imitates a character on the screen, a friend or relative. Have a conversation and explain that it is not necessary to say that. Compliment another movie or cartoon character who speaks correctly. Role-play your "performance".

6 lisp exercises for kids


Idea: for such activities, you need a mirror so that the child can see the correctness of the task, the movement of the lips, tongue. You can give your baby a desktop children's mirror. This creates pleasant associations with activities.

Lisp is a speech defect in which a person cannot pronounce the sound “s” correctly, but “sh” comes out instead. “Sholnyshko”, “Shyr”, “Shasha” - if these words are spoken by a small, 3-4 year old child, then no questions arise, but if an adult lisps, it looks, first of all, ugly and disgusts. It has been proven that a speech defect, which is normal at a young age, with insufficient attention from parents, develops into a huge problem for an adult. It is easiest to correct or correct articulation in childhood, but if lisping remains until the age of 20-30, it will take much more time and effort to get rid of this flaw, and sometimes even, alas, it becomes impossible to create a beautiful speech.

Why lisp occurs

First reason. Lisping occurs due to improper fit of the tongue in the mouth. A child who does not yet understand the meaning of the pronunciation of sounds disposes the language intuitively, automatically, as a result, some sounds are pronounced on their own, and some should definitely be worked on. Complex sounds include the sounds “s, f, h, l, r”, for which it is necessary to correctly put the tongue during pronunciation. If parents do not pay due attention to the child during the conversation, speech with sound defects becomes a habit. A growing baby realizes that this is the easiest way and does not want to correct himself, since adults already understand him, why bother yourself once again?

In adolescence, when every boy or girl wants to be different from others, lisping becomes a "sign of individuality." And only after a person enters the stage of an adult, he begins to be embarrassed by his ridiculous, childish pronunciation and begins to work on himself. But the more time passes, the more difficult it is to wean to pronounce the letters correctly. It is a fact. Over time, the tongue begins to be in a constant tone - it is very difficult to develop muscles that previously "slept" for a long time. They have already atrophied and in order to make them work again, it is necessary to conduct a lot of training. All this can be done, there would be a desire!

The second reason. Incorrect bite and special structure of the speech apparatus. This is the only cause of lisping that occurs from birth. Only a defectologist or a speech therapist can recognize and confirm that lisping appeared due to a defect in the speech apparatus. At this time, such a pathology is easily treated, so there should be no reason for worry.

Third reason. Due to severe stress, a sharp fright or prolonged neurosis, a change in muscle functions may occur, which ultimately affects the articulation of speech. Very often, this phenomenon occurs in childhood, when the baby still cannot speak out on its own, but keeps everything in itself.

How to get rid of lisp? Effective Methods

  1. Be sure to visit a speech therapist. Under his careful supervision, you will be able to quickly master new sounds and become better pronounce them. After the correct location of the tongue, sounds, phrases, expressions, tongue twisters are selected, which make it possible to consolidate the result and rather try the sounds in practice.
  2. If you decide to rely solely on your own strength, be sure to check the rhythm of nasal breathing. In order to clearly and correctly pronounce the sound "s", it is necessary that the nasal passage be completely freed. The correct pronunciation of “s” directly depends on this, so special attention should be paid to this item.
  3. Before class, be sure to wash your hands thoroughly and find a table mirror that will reflect all your manipulations. Cleanliness of the hands is essential because some exercises may require the assistance of the fingers in order to achieve the best tongue placement.
  4. It is very useful for lisping, as well as for other speech defects, to create a cup shape with the tongue. To do this, you need to open your mouth, stick out your tongue and fold the lateral edges of the tongue together. Such tension makes it possible to activate all the muscles that are on the surface of the tongue and prepare them for work.
  5. In order to prepare the muscles of the tongue for the load, there is another exercise "Cork". You will need a wine cork. It must be squeezed with your lips and try to push it out with your tongue, while the lips should be tightly compressed. Do not try to immediately push the cork out of your mouth. The point is to tighten the tongue, to prepare the muscles for work, and not to free the mouth.
  6. During all classes, it is imperative to record your conversation on a voice recorder, this will help you more clearly notice your problem areas and work on them with all your might.
  7. In order to begin to pronounce the sound "s" correctly, smile, showing your teeth, but without clenching your jaw. Place your tongue at the upper teeth or right in the middle and exhale the air with all your might. If everything was done correctly, you will be able to hear a slight whistle, which means that you are on the right track.
  8. In order to reinforce the result, it is necessary to pronounce the sound “s” several times while smiling - in a singsong voice, loudly and for a long time. After the first stage is reached, proceed to the study of syllables. “Sy-so-se-sa-su-sy” - pronounce it several times, carefully monitoring your language, articulation and facial expressions. After you have begun to pronounce the syllables easily, start working on the words. Speak slowly but loudly, drawing out the sound C. "S-s-s-sled", "S-s-sun" and so on. Ask an adult to check the result of your work, in order to make sure that everything is going according to the rules.
  9. Only after all the points have been reached, you can start practicing tongue twisters. On the Internet, as well as in numerous books, you can find a large number of tongue twisters and tongue twisters that make it possible to work out any sound. Start with the easier examples and work your way up to the hardest ones.

Lisp can be corrected by giving your speech a special beauty and expressiveness. There are many examples of how people, through their own efforts, began to pronounce a firm “S” instead of a hissing “Sh”. One of the brightest personalities who proved that nothing is impossible if you work hard on yourself is actress Sandra Bullock. Initially, her lisp gave her a ghostly personality, but then, in order to correct the situation, she began to train and exercise. In the end, everything worked out! Remember, even the longest road begins with the first step, you just have to start!

Video: get rid of lisp