M. J. is a fourth grade 9 year old African American male who attends the Smithsonian Boys Preparatory Academy with a mild functional articulation disorder. A functional articulation/speech disorder is defined as difficulty learning to make a specific sound, or a few specific sounds (Bowen, 2011). In M.J.’s case these articulatory difficulties are consequential to six years of thumb sucking, resulting in a class II maloclussion. The changes in M.J.’s oral structure are due to years of sucking his thumb resulting in an interdental and palatal lisp during speech production. M.J’s interdental lisp is characterized by the protrusion of his tongue between his front teeth during the production of phonemes /s/ and /z/. M.J. also presents with a lateral lisp characterized by, pressing his tongue tip against his palate and releasing air through an aperture along one or both sides of his mouth, accompanied by retracted lips.…show more content… She selected eighteen children that presented consistent lateral lisps, between the ages of seven and twelve. It should be noted that some child participants had high vaulted palates with accompanying tongue thrusts, as in the case of M.J resulting from the sucking of his thumb. Each child was seen in groups of three twice a week. During this time they were trained to differentiate between the lateral /s/ and the correct production of the /s/ phoneme. Each participant was also required to correctly identify the tongue tip and alveolar ridge by pointing to each with their finger and placing their tongue tip on the alveolar
