How to Get Rid of a Lisp: Speak Clearly and Appear Smarter
Can having a lisp in speech be a big problem? This is especially true when people start asking you to repeat what you just said. It can also be a cause of harassment when people begin to copy your gestures when speaking or your voice.
To avoid the problems that a lisp causes, here are the things you can do.
First, you need to find out in which situations you are experiencing a lisp. Typically, people with a lisp do not experience the condition all the time. It only appears during specific periods or emotions, such as when a person is excited or nervous about something. Knowing when your lisp occurs will help you avoid such situations and thus avoid the lisp.
Next, you should always try to speak more slowly than usual. If the people around you are already picking up on the way you speak, you should start to be very careful. Speaking slowly will allow you to articulate each word that you are saying and it will also allow you to pronounce the words better. It will also relax your muscles so you can control them more easily.
The third step is to get help from experts. Some cases of lisp are quite extreme. For people who have them, it will be advisable to get help from the professions. There are certain speech therapy programs that are provided to correct the speech of people with lisp.
If you have done the first two steps and are not yet ready to get help from a professional, you can try the toothy smile method. This method is a kind of speech therapy that aims to allow the tongue to move more freely. The first thing to do with this method is smile. Your smile should be big and warm. It should be large enough that your teeth show when you are doing it.
Keeping that same smile, pick up a book and read it out loud. If you don’t have a book, do a monologue. It may sound strange, but this is good practice for your language. Whenever you say something out loud, your tongue gradually learns to position itself. Do this technique when you are alone in your room and never try it in front of people or they might think you are crazy.
You can also ask a friend or family member to help you overcome the lisp problem. Ask someone close to you to say some words that are difficult for you to pronounce. Observe their mouth and the movement of their tongue carefully and then try to imitate them in front of a mirror. This will help you to know how to correctly move your tongue to produce the correct sounds.
It may take some time to completely get rid of the lisp, but it’s okay. All you need to do is practice a lot and be patient. Do the best you can and trust yourself that you can overcome it.
