Almost 4yo ds and speech qq

[CocktailQueen]

My ds will be 4 next week and has seen an NHS SALT (speech & language therapist) a few times over the last year. In that time he has made a lot of improvements - I just wanted him to be intelligible for starting school this Sept! - but there are still a few things worrying me:

• he can't say S + another consonants yet - so swan = wan, spider = pider, etc. Normal for this age? When might he grow out of it?
• Other consonant clusters are tricky too - so sprinkle = pinkle - normal?
• pronounciation of 'y' is 'l' - so you = loo, etc.
• not all his grammar is right, so he might say 'when are them coming to tea?' or similar. He also mixes up 'I' and 'me', sometimes using them correctly, sometimes not - eg 'when I come home from preschool me going to have lunch'.
• he never uses 'the' before nouns - so 'can you get book off bookcase?'

Are all these within the range of normal development? If anyone has any experience of this I'd be grateful. The SALT has said she's liek to see him again in 3 months, so she's not overly worried, but still....
Thanks :)

Hi, unfortunately I don't have an answer to your question but I'm worried about the same thing too. My daughter is nearly three and has issues with the letters V,L,F. She can't say them or they usually sound like P. She's also not constructing sentences yet. Has the therapist given you advice about these issues by any chance?
Thanks :)

Hi, some words with two consonants are very hard to say because of the quick movement of the lips and muscles in the mouth and sprinkle, star, snake are good examples of words that many children have problems with. I think that it sounds within the 'normal' range and many children start school with some sounds they cannot pronounce, and errors in grammar. The best way is for you to repeat the words correctly and have posoitive encouragement if he says it correctly.

Repeating it back and doing lots of nursery rhymes does help with confidence and pronounciation. I'm not a professional but I have a DS with severe delay in speech. It's good to encourage them to understand the difference between sounds such as P and B (p is a quiet sound and B is a lound sound). Use a mirror, use lots of short words. V is very difficult to pronounce. But if your DD is under three, she is very young to worry about this. It's absolutely normal to have some pronounciation problem at that age.

Reemnafie - problems pronouncing the letters you mention are very common at this age. If your dd isn't yet 3 then don't worry. What kind of sentences does she speak in - can you give an example?

Blueberry pancake - thanks :) My ds will be 4 next week, and used to have loads more speech issues, many of which have resolved after the intervention of ther SALT/over the last year with time. Just wondering how he compares with others of a similar age and when I can expect the rest of his speech sounds...

OP here - More info - ds also lisps and can't say ssssss (snake noise) yet. Do lisps usually go by themselves? Dh had the same as a child and had ST too - how bizarre that it can be hereditary...

She can't really engage in proper sentences yet. For example she says "Mummy toliet" rather than go to the toilet. Just "more please" not "I want more". They're just 2 words usually and only to me. Otherwise outside the house she hardly speaks at all.

reemnafie - if you're worrie, see your hv and ask her to assess your dd/ask to be referred for ST - we did before ds was 3 and it really helped quickly. At the very least the ST will be able to assess your dd and let you know if there is something to worry about or not.
hth

Ya, I will do that.

Sounds similar to my 3.9 year old who will start school in September. He's having small amounts of speech therepy to help. His grammar is fine and he swaps I for my, and does use the/a. Doesn't lisp but can't do sss or sh or th.
BUT he's had glue ear and grommets put in last week and that seems to be at least part of the problem.
Have you had his hearing checked?

ime (2 DSs with signif. speech delay) OP's DS is in the normal spectrum, DS2's speech was far far worse when he finished preschool -- and yet nobody (except me) even suggested he needed SALT until a month or so after he started school.

Hi Cocktail Queen, cluster reduction (reducing 2 or more consonant sounds to one e.g. 'swan' - 'wan') is a normal developmental error pattern that is usually gone by the time a child is around 4 years old, so he's just at the borderline with this one. The sustitution of the 'y' sound with 'l' is a little unusual, but often there is confusion between the 'y', 'l' and 'r' sounds until a child is around 5 years of age. The examples you give of his grammar are a little delayed for his age, however you give examples of nice long sentences that he is using and it may just be that his grammar is a little immature. I imagine his speech therapist is thinking along the same lines and just wants to check that his speech sounds and language development progress as much as she expects them to over the next few months.

I hope this helps.

Eleanor

DeWe - yes, he has seen the audiologist and has had reduced hearing in both ears/been borderline for glue ear each time, but not enough to consider grommets. Hope the grommets work for your ds!

Eleanor - thank you! I also posted earlier about ds's lisp - he puts his tongue out between his teeth to make a 'sss' noise and can't say ssssss (snake noise) at all clearly yet. Do lisps usually go by themselves? Dh had the same as a child and had ST too - how bizarre that it can be hereditary... He also has some words that have very individual pronunciation - 'na loo' is his 'thank you' which is VERY hard for outsiders to understand! We have some exercises from the ST to do but is there anything else we can do to help?