Blog

By Todd A. Bohnenkamp, PhD and Ken Bleile, PhD
June 19, 2020
Phonetic placement and shaping sometimes is confused with nonspeech oral-motor exercises (NSOMEs). Phonetic placement and shaping rely on phonetic knowledge to convert a nonstimulable sound into a stimulable one. Stated simply: The techniques place and…
By Ken Bleile, PhD
May 15, 2020
The following nine statistics give “the big picture” on how speech sound disorders may impact the life of a child: 1. A speech sound disorder is the world’s most common type of communication disorder, affecting approximately 10% to 15% of preschoolers…
By Ken Bleile, PhD
April 17, 2020
People often think of articulation and hearing as being mostly about the mouth and ear. This may be because those are visible structures—the former a hole occupying the lower part of our face and the latter a hole stuck on the side of our head. Of course,…
By Ken Bleile, PhD
March 13, 2020
Speech has a dual nature, being both an aspect of language and a channel of communication (Hockett, 1960). The dual nature of speech is important to our profession because it is the basis of the conceptual distinction between phonology and articulation…
By Ken Bleile, PhD
February 17, 2020
Speech is more than talking. To see this, think of all the things that either you could not accomplish or you could only accomplish with much greater effort if speech did not exist to convey language. Things that speech facilitates include (yes) talking,…