How clear should my 3 year olds speech be ?

[PollyPlummer]

Dts are 3 next month. Their speech had always been pretty good.

They both know quite a lot of words put and sentences together, but dt1 often lisps words but at the side of his mouth if that makes sense.
He gets excited when talking to people and trips up on words or fills in blanks with babbling if he can't think of a word.
I can understand what he says but I have noticed people will look at me to clarify what he has said.

Is this normal at this age ?

They're is such a big difference between kids at this age ime. Some are still very babyish and some are talking non stop. Have you asked your HV's advice?

A stranger should be able to understand 80% of what your child says.

My little girl turned 3 a few weeks ago. Very recently other people have started to understand what she says but prior to that only I could understand her. However, I believe with twins for a long time, they will communicate in their own way with eachother and therefore don't need to learn to talk and perfect their speaking as they have each other and can understand one another. It is common for twins to be slightly behind singletons with talking. Don't worry. Very normal

I seem to recall it being common for twins' speech to be delayed but can't remember where I read it -helpful!

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I haven't spoken to hv yet. I haven't seen one for ages.
But will call and see what they say.
They have never really had their own language, although I have heard about it and the speech delay.

It hasn't ever been an issue in terms of the amount of words they know or putting sentences together. We were always quite surprised by their speech because we expected them to be behind because the speech delay associated with multiples.
With dt1 it really is just the clarity if what he says. Its hard to tell if strangers can understand around 80% of what he says I will investigate a bit more.

Sounds fine, just repeat what he says clearly etc. wouldn't worry as long as he can talk and it's improving gradually.

Thanks Layl will do that.

Polly My DD used to 'babble' nonsense when she was around 3yo. She had just started at nursery and the staff told me about it as they were concerned. She would do it when she wanted to talk but didn't have anything really to say. We had got used to it as most of the time her speech was clear, but for them it was new.

For DD it just stopped as she got a bit older. HTH.

Thanks moniker, yes that's what he does. Its often a way of initiating conversation - with out the actual conversation
I have been really paying attention to what he does today and I think it is often when he gets over excited that his speech slurs and becomes unclear - he also babbles lots then too.

He gets over excited a lot which is probably why others cant understand him so much.

Sorry Monikar.

Yes normal, would be different if they were past 4yo already. People always looked at me to clarify what DC said and I hadn't a clue either. That's when you know they've got a speech problem.

Thank you lljkk.