• Question: Why do people get lisps?

    Asked by lidivampire to Tim, Damien, Rachael, Simon, Suzi on 17 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by daisymarie2k11.
    • Photo: Suzi Gage

      Suzi Gage answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Hi @lidivampire and @daisymarie2k11
      People get lisps because of some part of their mouth, face or throat being an unusual shape, usually larger than it should be.

      We have some experts in speech here, so they can probably go in to more detail.

      Hope this helps 🙂

    • Photo: Tim Fosker

      Tim Fosker answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi @lidivampire and @daisymarie2k11

      Making any speech sound is all about pushing air out from your lungs. The shape that we make with our lips, where we put our tongue and how open our mouth is, all change the sounds we produce.

      When we talk about a lisp we normally mean someone who has trouble with specific speech sounds, sounds we call fricatives. Fricatives are the speech sounds that sound a bit like a TV when the signal is really bad (hissing sounds). ‘s’ like in ‘sip’ is an example of a fricative. To make a ‘s’ sound you normally push your tongue so that the tip touches the bit of gum just behind your teeth. If you instead put the tip of your tongue just behind your teeth and try to say ‘sip’ you will have a lisp.

      Lisps are quite common but it is often not all that difficult to teach someone where to put their tongue and stop them having a lisp, provided they don’t have other speech difficulties.

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