3yo needing speech therapy?

[kellywall]

Hi all. I've just returned from my LO's 1 year check up and all was well. However, the HV commented at the end of the appointment that my other son, who turns 3 next week, wasn't speaking very well. She observed this while he babbled on in the background during the appointment. She said his vocabulary was great, and his sentences fine, but she was struggling to understand a lot of what he was saying as he uses a lot of letter replacements. I assumed it was normal for his age but HV wants to refer him to a speech therapist. Should I be worried? Thanks in advance x

I understand Random, and will definitely try your tips out tomorrow :-)

Sounds like a good plan

I would go for the assessment and see what they think. My DS is 4 and having speech therapy as he is very difficult to understand. He was making a lot of substitutions e.g. kink for pink, pime for time etc, apparently this is harmonisation where similar sounds are used so p/m are made from the same place so easier to say together.
A lot of these are now corrected but he also has trouble with some initial sounds f/l/s/r and misses off a lot of final consonants which makes him difficult to understand. We understand him because we are in tune to him but others struggle. The therapy is really helping and I wish we had had a more proactive HV and got referred much earlier as we had voiced concerns for a long time.
If there are no issues with your DS then you haven't lost anything by checking it out.

Just a quick update, took ds to speech and language drop in yesterday and the therapist had no idea why we were there. She said there is nothing to worry about and his nursery have since said the same. Seems like an overzealous HV! Glad I got it checked out tho, thanks for everyone's advice xx

Glad it has been able to put your mind at ease.