“Wook! There’s a cat over there!” “I hurt my yeg”. These kind of utterances are common among children who have difficulty pronouncing the L sound. As you can see, these children often substitute the L sound with the W or Y sound. And if you need an example of this error in action, you can check out Elmer Fudd of Looney Tunes.
The L sound normally starts to develop around the age of three and six. So any difficulties after a child turns six warrants a visit to the speech therapist.
What Happens When We Make the L Sound
Several processes take place at the same time when we say the L sound. Try saying “Like!” Notice that your lips are stretched widely and that your voice is turned on.
Next, notice your tongue. Most likely, you will find the tip of your tongue behind your top front teeth. And if you pay closer attention, you will find air escaping from the sides of your tongue.
How to Teach the L Sound
With so many processes involved, it is important to note the cause(s) for a child’s error. For example, some children tend to round their lips, resulting in a W sound instead of a L sound (Like Elmer Fudd!). Other children may have difficulties with the position of their tongue, so it requires some detective work on our part to determine the most effective way to help them correct their errors.
There are several ways to teach the L sound. Verbal cues are often the least intrusive while tactile cues are the most invasive. When I work with my little clients, I usually start from verbal cues and then work upwards based on their needs.
Verbal Cues
For children who tend to round their lips, I’d ask them to smile while saying an L word to stop them from rounding their lips.
One child I saw was a little different. He would substitute the L sound with an N sound (i.e “nove” for “love”). He also had difficulties with tongue control and could not get his tongue to the right position.
A way that I found useful for that child was to get him to vocalise “Lalalala” and then transition it into a word. Doing so helped him to loosen up his tongue, and also prevented him from rounding his lips.
To do so, I would get him to say “Lalalalal” then hold the last L sound. Then I will quickly get him to say an L word, for example “like”. So it looks something like this “Lalalalal…like”. This strategy worked beautifully for him, and he is now a proficient L producer.
Visual Cues
Since the tongue is hidden behind the upper front teeth duration production, it is difficult for a child to visualise what is going on. That’s where the Jumbo Mighty Mouth Puppet from Super Duper Inc comes in handy. I use it often to demonstrate the position that the tongue should be in.
Tactile Cues
These cues are useful for children who are not oral-defensive, which means they do not mind things in their mouth. If they are hyper-sensitive orally, we first have to help desensitise their mouth. Some tools which are helpful are toothettes as well as other tools from Talktools.com.
To help children to know where their tongue should go, you can try putting some peanut butter on their alveolar ridge. This is the bump right behind their top front teeth.
Another way is to ask children to lift up a cheerio with their tongue and then hold it behind their front teeth. Then have them vocalise while holding their tongue in that position.
Conclusion
As the child improves the level of cueing is gradually faded off. Once the child can successfully produce the L sound in isolation, they are quickly taught to use the L sound in various positions of real words.
At this point, I will also start sending homework for parents to work with their child at home.
There are many ways to teach the L sound. What others way do you use? Share them below.
Check out tips to work on other speech sounds as well!
How to teach the R Sound
How to teach the S Sound
How to teach the Th Sound
