Two readers responded to our most recent "Question of the Week." A reader in Chicago had posted the following question on the ADVANCE Facebook page: "Does anyone have any ideas for stimulating /sh, ch, dz/ in a lateral lisper? He can do /s, z/ and has placement for all the latter three phonemes, but he drops the lateral margins of his tongue when he phonates."

"There is one more phoneme that you might want to look at: 'zh' (as in treasure, pleasure and garage)," suggested one reader. "Unlike your other target phonemes, you might be able to elicit 'zh' from /z/. Once that is stabilized, move on to /dz/, then 'ch' and finally 'sh.'"

Another reader offered "some ideas for stimulating /sh/ and the related phonemes /ch/ (/t/ + /sh/) and /dz/ (the voiced version of /ch/). If the client is able to produce /s/, have him pucker his lips while producing the /s/. I had a young client who loved to slide back and forth between /s/ and /sh/ for practice. In the LiPS (Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing) program, the /sh/ is called 'fat air' because it is produced with scooped forward 'fat' lips. Caroline Bowen has a nice visual imagery technique for lateral /s, z, sh/ on her Web site (http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/fsd-butterfly-position.htm).

We also received another response to our first "Question of the Week." A reader from Missouri had asked, "Can an autistic adolescent with poor receptive language skills be expected to master basic language functions such as answering yes/no and 'wh' questions if he has not already?"

In addition to the two responses published in the Oct. 6 issue of ADVANCE, Marlene, from Boston, chimed in to say, "In my opinion, mastery is unlikely." She said the adolescent has a higher likelihood of responding to basic questions if the following variables/cues are in place:

• Questions are contextually based, e.g., "Who is thirsty?" when standing next to the water cooler; "Where are you going?" when lining up for dismissal; and "Why did we have a fire drill?" immediately upon returning to class. Do not ask, "What did you do this weekend?" unless you know the answer and can present options (text, pictures) from which to choose if the student fails to answer the question correctly.
• Pictures, symbols, objects and text are available as visual cues, i.e., schedule, choice board, menu.
• For yes/no questions, determine if the student responds correctly to questions pertaining to preferred items. If the student does not respond correctly (i.e., echoes last word) or indicates affirmative for non-preferred item, it is unlikely he will respond appropriately to less concrete topics, e.g., "Is it snowing outside?" when it is not. Over-emphasizing intonation initially also helps the student tune into non-linguistic features of speech.

"Finally and most importantly," Marlene wrote, "questions dealing with everyday situations and classroom topics need to be asked frequently and constantly throughout the day by teachers and caregivers, with the same questions repeated again and again. For me, working within a model of classroom-based language services, this staff objective has been the hardest to achieve since many teachers do a lot of telling or ask questions without waiting for or expecting a response, e.g., "Did everyone get a book? Oh, I see Sam didn't get one." And many parents or caregivers find it tedious (or silly) to generate questions around obvious situations, e.g., "What do you wear to bed?"

Our new "Question of the Week" comes from Pam, in St. Louis, MO, who posted the following question in the comments section of the ADVANCE Web site: "I have a 2-year, 11-month-old male with mild cerebral palsy. Language skills are within normal limits. Interdental /s/ and /z/ sounds are now noticeable as a result of an anterior open bite. What realistic results can be expected from speech therapy to correct the interdental /s/ and /z/ at this age level? At what age does dental intervention begin for an open bite?"

Please e-mail your response to Pam's question to Editor Sherry Fox at sfox@advanceweb.com. Answers will appear in this space in a few weeks.