Any SALTs or other speech development experts out there please? Quick question ...

[EdnaKrabappel]

... ds is 4.3, very articulate, big vocab. But he is struggling with "sh" "th" "f" and "v" sounds.

Will these come naturally or is there something I can do to help now? It is frustrating for him as it means he can't say his own name properly!

Hi,
Have you seen this www.speech-language-therapy.com/acquisition.html

I would say (and am by no means an expert!) that your ds sounds fine and they are often trickier sounds to master. I recently tried to refer dd who is 4.3 for SALT as she has a lisp which affects her fluency but was told to hold off until she starts school. I'm assuming your ds will be starting school this year? When I spoke to the SALT on the phone she said to discuss with teacher to see how problematic the speech difficulties were in understanding her. She said a school nurse can refer if it is an issue.

Thank you, that is a really useful and interesting link. Will devote some time to l ooking through it now.

DD was referred to SALT when she was 4.4 just after starting reception back in September.
She had difficulties with S, SH,L and still has some difficulties with R, SALT who was wonderful worked with her only on S and SH and successfully corrected those, L was corrected by itself, and SALT advised R will correct itself as well.
Practice and alternate S and SH words daily, we were given home work once a week to practice every evening.
Clearly distinguish for him difference between two different sounds.
Don't correct him, but rather model for him, give it time until he start school, teacher will quickly pick up on any speech issues if they are any at all, good luck

ok, thanks. School starts in a couple of weeks so will see what they have to say over the course of the first term. ds says things like "sank you" instead of "thank you", "vuh" instead of "the" and "wery" rather than "very".

He also can't seem to hear the difference between f and th, though I see from that link given by survivingsummer that "th" can take until 8 yrs old to fully develop so hopefully nothing to worry about right now.

DD still sometimes says fank you, and I fink, bless her