Tips for “Th:” Unique Features (Part 1 of 4)

“Just blow air over your tongue. Uh, well, oh boy--heard that ffffff, again. Try not to lift your lip up to your teeth—it’s thhhumb, not thhh-f-umb. Let’s give it another go—just the tongue this time—th-f-th… okaaay.…”

“Th” looks easy to produce and remediate, but sometimes it isn’t. Once a substituted movement pattern has been established, it’s difficult to replace. But not impossible.

Both the unvoiced (UV) and the voiced (V) “th” productions have unique components when compared to other lingual speech sounds--and they require different strategies. In this week’s offering (and perhaps the next one or two, we’ll see how it goes), I’ll share some interesting information about those components, as well as therapy techniques.

As we all know, similar to /r/, the “th” is a later developing speech sound. I guess I’m speaking for myself (but perhaps others, as well!) the “th” is one sound that I may delay treating in hopes it will develop. If the child is in third grade and it hasn’t developed, it’s probably time to treat. Especially those with the stubborn /f/ for UV “th” substitution.

It’s curious that the speech sounds that tend to develop later, the /r/, /l/, and both “th’s”, require lingual motoric maneuvers uncharacteristic of other speech sounds. Following are two of the differences. I’ll detail them a bit more next week.

The Tongue’s Operating Zone

The operating zone of all other consonants (other than the “th”) is up within the dental arch and require vertical movement of either the front-tongue or the back-tongue. On the other hand, the operating zone of the V and UV “th’s” is at the horizontal midline of the mouth and the tongue moves horizontally. The V and UV “th’s” are the ONLY horizontal consonant speech sounds. This makes their production very unique.

The Amount of Lingual Tension

All three of the later developing speech sounds (r, l, th) require greater tension, in different ways, than other consonants. Have you ever tried to work with a person with a “floppy” tongue and teach them to produce the “th”? Not easy! In fact, I would say full remediation is nigh-on impossible. Since the two primary components of all speech sounds is “stabilization and mobilization," the “th” production stabilization is not so much external (side tongue on side teeth) as it is internal. The intrinsic muscles of the tongue are pretty contracted as it moves anteriorly to subtlety interact with the front teeth. As many of us know, moving the tongue while contracting it takes a special skill.

If you happen to be working with a client(s) on “th” be sure to check out that simultaneous lingual tension + movement piece and let me know what you find. Love to hear from you!