Lannon Twomey: Speech-Language Pathologist

Treatment Areas: Speech

Lannon Twomey: Speech Pathology With A Difference
 

Lannon has experience treating a number of disorders related to speech production and voice. Click on the following topics to learn more about these disorders.

Speech production is a complex process of coordination among respiration, phonation, articulatory posturing, and resonance to create the particular sounds recognized within a language as being meaningful.

In general, the act of producing speech involves generating sufficient breath to vibrate the vocal cords and then directing the sound produced by the vocal cords into the mouth and nose to be shaped. Shaping occurs by moving the tongue, cheeks, palate and lips into specific positions to produce a specific sound. For example, the /m/ sound is produced by exhaling enough air to make the vocal cords vibrate while the lips close and soft palate opens. This forces the sound into the nasal cavity and out the nose. For /d/, the air is directed into the mouth (the palate closes off the nose) and the tip of the tongue taps the spot right behind the top front teeth.

For more information about production of American and Spanish speech sounds, visit:

This website was created by the University of Iowa to provide animated models of speech production for sounds in American English and Spanish. Articulatory diagrams are presented using Flash. Click on the "Launch English Library" link on the upper right to get started.