SPEECH BUDDIES REVIEW (Part 2)

The Speech Buddies is a rather interesting set of tools. It targets the five most common problem sounds. Each tool trains the tongue to make the correct shape by providing targets that the child can feel.

http://www.speechbuddy.com/parents/tools

I will share about three children whom I have used the tools with. And all were success stories! However, I regret to say that all three had problems with the same sound /l/.

  The Story of Ariel  

Age: Turning 7 this year
Problem Sound: /l/

Her Story:
Ariel was having severe motor planning difficulties when I first met her. We worked on sequential movements, through activities for gradation and dissociation of her jaw, lips and tongue. After about 6 months, we started on individual sounds. She sailed through /s/, /z/, /f/ and /v/ but her difficulties with /l/ persisted. Ariel tends to stick her tongue out between her teeth when saying words such as 'lion' and 'lamb'. She has difficulty with tongue elevation, i.e. putting her tongue tip behind her upper front teeth. Saying /l/ with the tongue out might sound alright at single word level but when it comes to a string of words, it is an inefficient way of talking.

Having tried several other methods, Ariel's mum asked me about Speech Buddies. I obtained a set promptly and trialled with Ariel. We started with the /l/ tool and viola! Her tongue went up to where the tool was placed. This was because the tool has a long groove which guided her tongue to move from being out between her teeth and up to behind her upper front teeth. It surely helped with her motor planning difficulty.

The /l/ tool

Note the groove which starts near the grey handle.

Ariel was really good with saying the /l/ sound and words starting with /l/ when using the tool! However, she had difficulty when the tool is not used. I could not fade the tool off. Ariel still could not elevate her tongue independently. 

Suddenly I thought maybe if she used the /r/ tool to practice on tongue elevation by curling her tongue upwards and backwards, there could be some transference effect on her tongue elevation for /l/. (This is not evidence-based for sure! But intuition tells me otherwise.) Hence, I tried the /r/ tool and bingo!

Ariel could elevate her tongue to produce a good /l/, without the tool! We went back to working on /l/ words with the /l/ tool and eventually I was able to fade Ariel off the tool and now she can say the /l/ sound and /l/ words with ease. The next step with be working on /l/ at other positions in words, i.e. the final position as in 'tall' and the middle position as in 'salad'.

  The Story of Justin        

Age: Turning 7 this year
Problem sound: /l/

His Story:
I have been working with Justin since November 2014. We started off working on his lisp and soon, he was able to retract his tongue to produce a clean and efficient /s/. Then we went on to /n/, /l/ and /r/. Justin achieved /n/ rather quickly, but /l/ was produced with a tongue between the teeth. Similar to Ariel, this tongue placement is not efficient when it comes to connected speech. I tried the Speech Buddies /l/ tool and yes! Justin could put his tongue up behind his upper front teeth with ease. He could also say all the /l/ words (in all positions) when using the tool. As of now, the success rate is about 60% when I faded the tool off. He could also do /l/ blends such as 'black' and 'sleep' at 50% accuracy.

However, despite having an improved /l/, I still have concerns for Justin's jaw stability and gradation. I noticed that the ease of elevating his tongue increases when I provided him with jaw support. His jaw is not strong and stable enough to maintain at mid-high-position so that his tongue has enough space to curl up. The lack of jaw stability and gradation also impact on his overall intelligibility, despite having achieved a good repertoire of speech sounds.

As such, I will use the /l/ tool in adjunct with jaw exercises for strength and stability.
                               
  The Story of Jay  

Age: Turning 6 this year
Problem sound: /l/

His Story:
Jay has been with me since January 2016. He is a bright and cheerful boy who loves to talk, but his intelligibility was only a mere 50%, to an unfamiliar adult.

Despite the low clarity of his speech, Jay only has ONE speech sound which he has difficulty with, i.e. /l/, especially /l/-blends such as 'sl' in sleep, 'pl', in please and 'bl' in black. Having had experience with Speech Buddies' /l/ tool, I trialled that as my first choice of intervention. And yes! /l/ was produced with ease. After a few months, Jay can produce /l/ words with adequate tongue elevation 80% of the time, in spontaneous speech. This skill was also transferred to /l/-blends at single word level.

Similar to Justin, there is more to the unclear speech than just working on a specific speech sound.

My other areas of concerns include:

1. Poor vocabulary - Jay speaks with a lot of fillers and 'empty' words such as 'erm', 'then' and 'like this and like that'
2. Speech rate - Jay speaks very fast (this may due to poor breath support; he needs to rush all his words out in one short breath.)
3. Voice - Jay's voice is mildly hoarse as he often needs to shout over his two other older brothers to get attention.
4. Difficulty with sequential moments - Jay has difficulty coordinating his mouth movements to produce a continuous string of speech sounds to form words and sentences. An assessment using other oromotor tools indicated significant weakness on the right side of his jaw. 

Conclusion

Despite my limited experience using only the /l/ tool from the Speech Buddies tools set (and a bit of the /r/ tool), I would recommend the Speech Buddies. *crossing my fingers that the tools for the other sounds are as effective!*

The Speech Buddies indeed teaches accurate tongue placement, by allowing the child feel where his/her tongue should be placed. However, as in all therapy, there is no absolute one method/approach/tool to treat a problem. An in-depth clinical assessment is always required to look at the child in a holistic manner. 

Good luck!

P/s: I will share more case studies once I get a chance to use the tools for other sounds.