How to Improve /h/ Production in Connected Speech

Question

Answer

I'm assuming that both children have adequate structure and function of their oral mechanisms and no weakness or voice issues are noted. When they are producing conversational speech, are they marking the /h/ sound with a glottal or is it just omitted? If they have glottal sounding substitutions I would practice diaphragmatic breathing while laying on the floor with a book on their tummies. Breathing in through the nose and out the mouth with exaggeration to try and relax the voice in order to produce the /h/ slowly adding vowels to it and dragging it out haaaaa, heee, etc. If voice is hard for them to achieve, try prolonging the whisper /h/ and then having them hold their throats to feel the vibration when a vowel is added. They can start with your model and touching your throat and then imitate it. Sometimes "who" helps and they can play with an owl sound "hoo hoo". You can also play with a tissue in front of the mouth and produce he, hi, hu. Taking it out of a structured setting and role playing with "hi" around the house and/or school might help them to release the sound as well. Hope this helps and please email further with any questions. It's often difficult to know what advice to give when I'm not sure what the child is doing with their musculature. Keep it up, your hard work will pay off.

Visit the SpeechPathology.com eLearning Library to view all of our live, recorded, and text-based courses on a variety of topics in the field.

Leah Mahadeo is an SLP who has previously worked in early intervention, a private pediatric clinic and elementary, middle and high school settings. She enjoys working with the autistic population as well as articulation, fluency and oral motor/feeding issues. Leah currently is a stay at home mother of 20 month old twins.