#onthisday Oh, I remember this day. Every day was a struggle to survive. I didnt think I would make it. I wish I could reach back and hold my heartbroken, tired, drowning self. I am so proud of her.

At least, that’s what the lore is. TBH, I haven’t the faintest idea if that is true or not, but I would like to think that it is. In celebration, please enjoy my original art above that have each been inspired by absolute love. "Let me make you a present of a secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential, is invisible to the eye." -The Fox from The Little Prince Happy Valentine’s Day from your neighborhood Valentine ❤️ #valentine #happyvalentinesday #fyp #love

Three months later 🙃 #artistproblems

Some good ol’ positive reinforcement brought to you by “Nerdles” 😂 I honestly love the way he calls them nerdles, but he interdentalizes final consonant “d” so this candy was the perfect item to work on to target alveolar placement of the tongue and to provide the item as incentive for correct speech production! We are still in the establishment phase of teaching place, manner, and voicing with utilization of visual feedback. Off camera, I am also mixing in contrastive therapy technqiues for minimal and maximal oppositions. #speechtherapy #preschoolspeechtherapy #SLP #lisp #howtofixalisp #speech #articulation #phonologicaldisorders #dopamine #frontallisp

By the age of 4, your preschooler should be able to pronounce the “f” sound correctly in their every day speech. My 4-year old has a bit of an interdental lisp which is pretty normal for his age, but it makes it difficult for him to differentiate between sounds including “d,” “th,” “s,” and “f.” He is now also demonstrating Phonological Processes including Alveolar Assimilations, Interdentalizations, and Velar Fronting and he has started to substitute an entire class of sounds (“s”) to replace another (“f”). He also substitutes “th” for “s” and “d” for “th.” This means that the word, “Fire,” is pronounced, “Sire.” He just tried to pronounce the word, “Disaster,” and it sounded like, “dithathter.” When he says the word, “Kid,” he says, “Tid,” which is an example of moving the velar sound “k” (which is produced in the back of the mouth) to the very front of his mouth for “t” which is an alveolar sound. He is able to produce each sound in isolation and at the beginning and end of a word when provided with the correct model, but during connected speech (such as conversation), he lets his articulators (lips, tongue, teeth, palate) get lazy and he goes back into his bad speech habits. These phonological processes and assimilations should improve on their own by the time he turns 5, but if they don’t, it could impair his phonological awareness (matching letters with their sounds), writing, reading, spelling, and communication with others. As we are having a lot of difficulty with learning to write and identify letters and their sounds, I’ve recognized that our speech therapy needs to start now! So welcome to our very first speech therapy session. I pulled up the camera on my phone to let him see what his mouth looks like for each sound (visual feedback) and decided to start recording a few minutes in. He did so well! Consistency and reward is key! Each time he said the correct sound, I provided immediate positive feedback. You can also reward by providing items such as marbles or coins to collect in a clear container (easy to reuse over and over). Reward=dopamine which translates to positive feelings during correct speech-sound production. This method is my favorite way to improve intelligibility! #speechtherapy #preschoolspeechtherapy #SLP #lisp #howtofixalisp #speech #articulation #phonologicaldisorders #dopamine #frontallisp