WHISTLING KETTLE

Myofunktional Exercise  Collect ion

Application:

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This exercise may as well be found under the name ,S’-EXERCISE. It aims at the micro-motility of the surface of the tongue-tip using the tactile aesthetics and an acoustic feed-back. It may be prescribed for a precise orientation of the tongue tip in a progressive state as well as for an improving of the surface sensitivity even in connection with sound forming exercises in respect of the creation of the ,S’-channel and on the level of a motility training simultaneously to the exercise DIMPLE.

Trough the aimed retral movement in the exercise it is especially fitting for retral orientation of a proverted tongue.

Contents:

This fine motor motility exercise with acoustic feed-back becomes a play exercise trough the desire to create a whistling between the incisal interdentia.

Materials:

Not required.

Procedure:

- Previous exercises: The general orientation of the tongue tip should have been completed (see TONGUE-TIP-ORIENTATION ).

-Starting position: ,L’-POSITION.

- Step-by-step-description:

-1 The lips are slightly opened, the teeth generally just not touching each other.

The tongue tip sits on the POINT and, next, has to:

-2 delicately let go by a hair’s breadths to let a exceedingly fine stream of air glide over its tip’s surface just in the median groove quite as if a blown-up rubber balloon is held tight with the finger tips and just a bit of air will have to be released from its spout.

-3 On this feeling of the air stream gliding over the tongue surface the patient firstly concentrates trying to feel it gliding over it “like a spaghetti”. A faint hissing sound is created.

-4 Now the tea-kettle comes into the game.

The tongue tip is drawn back for fragments of a millimetre retrally while constantly the faint stream of air (as a spaghetti) from the s-channel must be felt. With a certain position of the tongue the hissing sound turns to a whistling (mostly). Important for the training objective, though, is not the whistling sound but the tactile kinaesthetic formation of the ,S’-channel (the spaghetti feeling.

-Timing: If we take the movement cycle: ,L’ – Hiss – Retral-pull – Whistle as one sequence it may be well recommended to arrange this in a series of up to ten repetitions. To introduce some variety the TONGUE-PLOP may be placed as an ALTERNATIVE EXERCISE.

Characteristics:

Fine motor skills, stereognosis, tactile kinaesthetic, motility, feed-back, motivation (play exercise).

Remarks:

Each movement of the tongue tip will have to take place on the “microlevel”, the sensing is very important.

Discussion:

The exercise name, describing the sound created is chosen to mark the difference to the sound formed with the lips.

Instructions:

This is but a jolly exercise: Whistling like a teakettle!

Some already know how to do it, others will have to learn it.

The tongue will learn to form and feel a thin air flow. We start with the ,L’-POSITION.

The lips are open.

Now let some air flow over the tip of the tongue. This is quite so as to hold the opening of a rubber balloon shut with the fingers and tries to let some air out. The tongue tip may let loose quite a bit from its POINT to allow some air to seep over it and on trough between the teeth. If you watch it intensely, the flowing air will feel like done spaghetti.

When you, now, draw the tongue tip just a bit backwards while the air is streaming out… well, does it hiss already? Practice till it makes a hiss! Then do a long whistle, breathe in and whistle again. Say, the times or soften as we have arranged.