Lisps

At Expressable, we’ve helped hundreds of children and adults who have a lisp to improve their communication and gain confidence in their speech. Our unique program teaches you evidence-based strategies for correcting a lisp, with tools and exercises to practice at home for faster progress.

A lisp happens when a person’s tongue is placed incorrectly inside their mouth during speech. When a person lisps, their tongue usually touches, pushes against, or protrudes between their teeth. As a result, people with a lisp often struggle to pronounce certain consonants. They typically make a “th” sound when trying to say an “s” or “z” sound.

Lisps often become noticeable after age 2, when children begin developing their language abilities. While it’s always a good idea to talk with a speech-language pathologist if you think your child has a lisp, it’s especially important once your child is close to age 5. A lisp that’s not corrected can persist into adulthood.

This article explains Expressable’s clinical approach to evaluating and treating lisps. Learn about the techniques involved in speech therapy for lisps, along with the individualized support our speech therapists provide. You can also view our complete guide to lisps to get answers to common questions, including the causes of a lisp, how different types of lisps sound, and home exercises to help fix a lisp.

1Why do people seek speech therapy for a lisp?

2How Expressable treats lisps in children and adults

3Practice correcting a lisp at home with the Expressable portal

4The benefits of online speech therapy for a lisp

5See what people are saying about our speech therapy for lisps

6Get matched with a speech therapist today

Why do people seek speech therapy for a lisp?

Lisping often doesn’t have a severe impact on a person’s ability to be understood. However, a lisp can still affect a person’s social and emotional wellbeing. 

Children with a lisp may feel anxious or uncomfortable when speaking with other people. This can affect their confidence, self-esteem, and ability to socialize with others. 

Adults with a lisp may feel frustrated or embarrassed when speaking. They may not speak up much at work, or they may try to avoid certain social situations altogether. 

Lisps affect everyone differently, and not everyone wants to get rid of a lisp. However, for those who would like to change the way they speak, speech therapy can help. Not only can you learn techniques for better speech articulation, being able to communicate more clearly improves quality of life–at school, at work, socially, and in the community. 

While each person’s treatment will be tailored to their goals, the Expressable lisp program focuses on:

• Evidence-based techniques for clear speech sound production

• Easy practice exercises for correcting a lisp at home, between sessions, so you make faster progress

• Education for parents and caregivers so they can support their child’s articulation skills

How Expressable treats lisps in children and adults

Expressable matches families and adults with a licensed speech therapist trained to evaluate and treat lisps. All therapy is delivered online via face-to-face video conferencing on Zoom. Research has shown that online speech therapy works just as well as in-person therapy for speech sound disorders. Online speech therapy is convenient, offers wider access to speech therapists, and makes it easier for parents and caregivers to be involved with their child’s care. At Expressable, parent coaching is a key part of our lisp treatment program. If you’re the parent of a child with a lisp, your child’s age will influence how your speech therapist interacts with them and you during sessions. Sessions for younger children work best when a caregiver attends alongside them. That way, you can learn cues and at-home strategies directly from the therapist, and confidently practice with your child throughout the week.

Expressable’s clinical approach to evaluating and diagnosing a lisp

There are actually four types of lisps, with certain characteristics and tongue placement. They include a palatal lisp, lateral lisp, dentalized lisp, and interdental lisp. Correct diagnosis is important for treatment.

Speech therapy for a lisp begins with an evaluation. Your speech therapist will choose from a variety of standardized or norm-referenced tests and perform the following steps:

• Review your or your child’s medical history

• Examine the anatomy of the mouth and tongue placement

• Check for issues like a tongue tie or tongue thrust

• Observe your or your child’s speech fluency, vocal quality, and social communication skills

• Determine whether a lisp or a different type of speech sound disorder is present

• Provide a professional opinion of when to start intervention; for example, for a young child, it may make sense to delay treatment and monitor to see if the lisp naturally disappears over time

The evaluation results will be used to make a diagnosis and develop a personalized care plan, which typically includes two speech therapy sessions per week.

Evidence-based strategies to help fix a lisp

Our clinical approach to treating a lisp typically includes helping the person:

• Increase their awareness of where they’re placing their tongue when speaking

• Hear and recognize the difference between correct and incorrect pronunciation of sounds and syllables

• Correctly make the target sounds they’re struggling to pronounce

• Correctly pronounce more complex language, such as consonant and vowel combinations, structured and spontaneous sentences, and more

• Practice using these correct pronunciations in real-life settings outside of therapy sessions

At Expressable, speech therapists use a variety of techniques to improve a lisp. Different types of cues and techniques work for different people.

You’ll likely focus on placement practice, or learning how the different parts of the mouth are used to make speech sounds. In speech therapy for a lisp, some children respond well to a verbal cue, such as a reminder to “use your ‘snake’ sound.” A gestural cue can also be helpful, like dragging one finger down the arm to indicate a long, hissing sound.

As the person learns to make the target sounds, the speech therapist will decrease the amount of help provided. This increases the person’s independence in their speech sound productions, which is the whole goal of speech therapy. 

As your independence grows, your speech therapist will also increase the complexity of tasks you’re working on. For example, at the beginning of therapy you may work on the /s/ sound by itself, not in words. Over time, you will likely move on to practicing /s/ in sentences. Your Expressable speech therapist will teach you self-monitoring and self-correcting techniques so you can use your new skills in everyday conversations.

Practice correcting a lisp at home with the Expressable portal

At Expressable, speech therapy doesn’t stop when your session ends. You’ll have ongoing text messaging support so you can ask questions or get tips from your speech therapist between sessions. You’ll also have access to our client portal, which makes it easier to practice correcting a lisp at home. The more often you practice, the faster you’ll make progress!

In the portal, you’ll find Learning Paths that explain and reinforce strategies for fixing a lisp, such as placement practice, cueing, and self-monitoring:

You can watch videos that show real techniques in action, such as the “exploding /t/” technique:

Your speech therapist will assign personalized home practice activities you can do during your everyday routines, such as practicing the /s/ sound during meals or while playing a game with your child:

The benefits of online speech therapy for a lisp

Multiple studies over several years have shown the effectiveness of online speech therapy. Not only does it work as well as in-person speech therapy, there are lots of reasons people tend to prefer it:

1 Wider access to qualified speech therapists

With online speech therapy, it’s not hard to find a speech therapist with experience treating a lisp, in children or in adults. You have access to an entire network of speech therapists who are licensed to treat in your state. This is especially beneficial for people who live in more rural areas, or in areas with long waitlists for speech therapy.

2 Convenience and flexibility

Between school, work, errands, and everyday life, it can be hard to regularly attend in-person therapy sessions. Not only is there the commute time, but most speech therapy clinics are only open during normal business hours. With work schedules and after-school activities, for many people, that just doesn’t work.

Online speech therapy removes this problem. At Expressable, you can schedule sessions on the days that work best, at the times that are most convenient, including evenings and weekends. 

3 The comfort of home

If you or your child feel embarrassed or shy when it comes to speech therapy, you’re not alone. Many people get nervous or tense at the thought of talking to someone face-to-face. With online speech therapy, doing sessions from the comfort of your own home can put you at ease. And when you’re comfortable and confident, your sessions will be more effective.

Online speech therapy can work especially well for young kids. The speech therapist gets to see the child in their home environment and observe how they interact with family members. They can even incorporate toys and books that the child enjoys.

4 Affordability

In-person speech therapy clinics have many expenses that aren’t directly related to your care, such as rent, utilities, and other operational costs. As with any business, these costs are often passed down to the consumer. The cost of speech therapy will vary by provider, but generally, the cost of online speech therapy will be less than an in-person practice—even though you receive the same quality of treatment.

See what people are saying about our speech therapy for lisps

We’ve treated hundreds of children and adults around the country who have a lisp. Our speech therapists consistently earn ratings of 4.9 out of 5 stars from their clients. Here’s just a sampling:

“Gave me encouragement throughout the process of correcting my lisp” Expressable was a very convenient and approachable way to get speech therapy, which I had been considering for a long time. My speech therapist, Clarissa, was amazing to work with. She was very supportive and gave me encouragement throughout the process of correcting my lisp.  “Improved not only my speech but also my confidence” By working with Fabine, I was able to overcome a lisp that I had experienced for 30 years. Speech therapy has improved not only my speech but also my confidence. I am so grateful to Fabine for her expertise, her kindness, and her patience.

“The homework provided helpful practice between sessions” Fabine is truly an amazing speech therapist. She worked with my child on the correct articulation of a couple specific sounds. Fabine is kind and patient, using games and conversation to engage children in their speech therapy. The homework assignments provided helpful practice between sessions, and the web portal for Expressable was easy to use. Fabine is one of those rare people who changes lives for the better!

“Our son made great progress over the year of his therapy” Expressable was extremely easy to use and our therapist was compassionate and patient. Our son made great progress over the year of his therapy. I am convinced that without Expressable his articulation would not be nearly as clear as it is today. Our friends and family have noticed improvement and comment on it as well. It is exactly what we were looking for.

Get matched with a speech therapist today

We’re here to support you or your child so you have the confidence to share who you are with the world. Find the right speech therapist for your needs here.