Should I speak to HV about this?

[bebeinamanger]

DD is 2.4, bright & chatty & speaks quite well & in long sentances. But she can't say 'F' sounds & says them with a 'S' instead. So she will say 'Sog' instead of 'Frog' and 'Sore' instead of 'Four'. Her name starts with a 'F' sound which is really unfortunate! We have tried getting her to look at how we are saying 'F' & she will repeat but say 'S'!

She is starting to pick up on letters & saying them phonetically (sp?) and this is making me wonder if I should perhaps mention it to HV? She will quite happily tell me the alphabet 'Aaaa, Berr, curly Cuh, Duh, Eh, Sssssss, Guh, Huh....' (You get the picture )

She seems quite insistant that she is saying it right. So instead of correcting her we are just repeating the word in context and saying it right. She was quite an early talker & this has been a problem for probably over a year. We thought it might improve when she had more words, but it hasn't at all & it's qetting quite confusing & frustrating, for DD as well as us when we don't understand! Will she just grow out of it?

Nobody knows when or if she will get out of it, but it's unlikely that the HV will do anything about it at 2.4. I know that confusing these two sounds is very very common, and that children are expected to 'grow out of it' by the age of 4 (if I remember well). The best way to deal with it is to repeat the word the right way, without making her feel like she is saying it wrong. Also, it is a very different position of the mouth, so you can try practicing in front of a mirror different ways to position lips/mouth/teeth to create new sounds (as a fun game) and she might 'get' how to produce the sound.

She's very young, start worrying in 2 years if it's still there.

In the meantime, just keep chatting to her.

Thanks for the reply :)

I have tried doing the making faces/sounds with her looking at me, but will try in the mirror too. The only time she (sort of) says 'F' rather that 'S' is when she says 'Tooth Fairy', I think that's probably down to the positioning of her tongue in her mouth etc. She just doesn't seem to notice the difference in the sound. But I guess she is still quite young! :)

Xpost! I'll leave it for now!

Incidentally (and completely unhelpfully), 's' letters used to be written as big 'f' type shapes - shows how the two sounds are so close historically.

Aaaah, maybe she is a child genius & I am the one who is wrong?! :o

DS has something similar, he can't do a 'c' sound - so he says tat for cat, fareful for careful, stuff like that. I've always just figured it's normal and he'll grow out of it.

There's no harm in mentioning it to the HV for reassurance, but I think she'll just say what's been said here.