The Marshalla Guide: Book Review

Mar 2, 2020 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

I was recently asked to review a new book. The Marshalla Guide A Topical Anthology of Speech Movement Techniques for Motor Speech Disorder and Articulation Deficits By Pam Marshalla, M.A., CCC-SLP. Being fairly familiar with the quality of Pam Marshalla’s previous works and using/owning many of her books myself I jumped at the opportunity to review her new book.

The Marshalla Guide is basically Pam Marshalla’s life’s work in the areas of oral motor and articulation. Passing on Pam’s knowledge, research and remediation strategies in a structured and well organized manner, the Marshalla Guide covers all things articulation. While in the process of reviewing this book I’ve already used it to refresh my knowledge on lateral lisp, jaw stabilization techniques and other ideas to achieve stimulability of challenging error sounds.

The Marshalla Guide is a pretty big book, almost 500 pages, which might appear overwhelming to some. However, scanning/reading the book I noted that there was quality and valuable information on every page. Finding what you need is not a problem at all. At the beginning of the book Pam Marshalla references the history of articulation therapy and traditional therapy methods. This was a fun read for me because Pam Marshalla and I would have gone to college around the same time and it was exactly what I was taught. I always felt that knowing this underlying history and evolution of speech language pathology in general has helped me build on my skills as a clinician.

Throughout the Marshalla Guide there are therapy techniques, guides, strategies, explanations and specific activities to aid just about any oral motor or articulation situation you may encounter. For me some of this was a good review but I also noted several new strategies and theories to apply. My first impression was that this would make a fantastic college text. Not in dry sense of the term college textbook but in a more meaningful way with practical application. I wish The Marshalla Guide had been on my shelf the past 35 years. It would have increased my confidence around providing appropriate oral motor and articulation therapy in many complex situations.

Who knew there was so much to know about oral motor and articulation? Well, speech Language Pathologists do and so did Pam Marshalla. She was able to take her training and extensive knowledge and organize it in an extremely helpful and user friendly way. You won’t need any other books on articulation therapy other than the Marshalla guide. It is a book you will keep on your shelf forever. A+

***The Marshalla Guide is available at Marshalla Speech and LanguageA launch sale is going on now with 10% off until April 30, 2020. Get an additional 5% off using the promo code schoolspeech.