When should you worry about speech "problems"?

[SoupDragon]

DS2 is 5.5 and he can't say Rs (resulting in my favourite "W is for Whino" misunderstnading) and also TR, QU, SH and a few other combinations. He struggles with J too although this does seem to have improved over the last year.

Should I be worried? I've not really worried about it before and no one at school seems to have shown any concerns about his language - his vocabulary etc is all very good it's just some of the sounds. When should I "worry" about it?

I'm thinking of taking him along to see the HV (he's not been since he was 8 months old!) when I take BabyDragon to be weighed - do HVs know anything about htis sort of thing or should I take him to the GP instead?

If the school aren't worried then i wolkdn't either.
you could contact your local SALT to se if they have any speech groups locally. they ususally run a kind of toddler group that encourages early speech and some have a group for older children.

SD,asasalt can tell you it's not seriousbut he is coming to the age when a tad old for such things.

You could get him assessed-generally salt depts. let you self refer.
Ring yours to find out.

my ds(5) struggles with these too. he sees the salt but they don't seem too worried about it

I think it is ususal for children of this age to struggle with certain sounds-my ds who has always been a fantastic talker (talked early and has a very extensive vocabulary) struggles with pronouncing his Js (pronounces as d) and always asks for Alother instead of another. I think they eventually get it right!

Yeah it is getting to the stage when I think he's too old to be still having problems and I don't want it to become habit. eg I know he can manage a R sound because I correct him sometimes and make him Grrrrowl like a tiger to show the difference. I think he just needs to be "shown" how to make the sounds and he'll be fine.

I think I'll take him up to the HV because I think they run the SALT clinic up there too.

Ta

Got DS2 added to the year long waiting list Madness.

I wouldn't worry, to be honest. He's talking normally, communicating normally - that's the main thing.
My friend's child, very smart, refused to use the pronoun 'she' until very recently, and she's six. Everyone was 'he'. She would watch me breastfeeding my daughter and say 'look, HE'S eating you!', etc. Or she would watch her mum and say 'HE'S cooking dinner!'
This little girl does 'she' now, but it's only very recent. She also had funy 'spoonerisms' that now seem to be on the wane - eg, said 'efferlant' when she meant 'elephant'.
I don't think you should worry. If he's still doing it when he's ten, maybe you'd be concerned.

Hiss language and vocabulary is absolutely fine, it's just the pronunciation of certainl letter sounds. I'm not worried really but I don't want it to become a habit that's harder to break - it's not improved at all over the last year whereas he had "cured" some other problem sounds the year before. With a year's wait for SALT, I wanted to head off any potential problems rather than waiting until it is a problem and then having a year's wait. I don't actually think it would take very much to sort it out but I'm not qualified to know how to do that. I wouldn't be worried if he was simply mixing words up or shifting the sounds round in a word, it's the fact that there are sounds he genuinely can't manage that raised a warning flag for me.

DS1 who spoke clearly and early used to say effalunt. I was gutted when that stopped.

SoupD: Does he say 's' or 'sh' for the tricky sounds, so truck becomes 'shuck', shop becomes 'sop', etc.? DD is almost 5 and those are the worse things she does, really confuses me.

No, it's not as simple as that.
Sh becomes S,
R becomes W,
CH is almost a T sound, more a tch if that makes sense.
TR is a complicated one - kind of KW sometimes or TL, KL.
J used to be D but that cured itself
QU is another odd one. KW but not quite QU. The K sound is wrong in it.

Even I can't make some of the sounds he makes TBH!! I guess that's how he must feel trying to make the correct sounds. He grew out of a lot of the common problems like J and TH for F.

Still sounds really similar, SoupD. DD can say "shop" but she can't say some other sh words right. She can't do pl... I think "plan" comes out as "tan", for instance. But in some words she can do P or L Ok.

I posted on here recently about my three year old, he too has lots of language and vocab, but mispronounces a couple of signs. Neither his nursery or us thougth it was a problem but when he saw a SALT she recommended a speech group and home exercises. It's probably worth getting him checked out

I've spoke to friends about it and it's very common, zdl. There are (I'm told) certain sounds that they don't worry about until 7 or so. I've decided to flag it for 2 reasons because 1) he's not improved over the last year really whereas a few sounds had improved over the previous year and 2) there's a long waiting list

I think where in the word a sound occurs does make a difference - eg DS1 could manage the H in "ahead" but his friend Hugh was called Few. DS2 also can't manage a H at the start of a word but I'm not worried about that. The sounds DS2 can't manage, he can't manage them wherever they appear in a word.

My ds1 is five and we get him saying "bideo" - he can't say the V - he also can't say R's very well and struggles with some words. My ds2 is also having the same problem at 2.10, but he's being referred to a speech therapist and I'm not worried. We talk to our boys all the time, they'll grow out of it eventually. I can remember that my baby brother regularly saw a speech therapist and he turned out fine (he's 21 years now and talks the hind leg off a donkey given the chance, all in perfectly understandable english!) Ds1 had his own special language till he was 3 and if anyone wanted to understand it we used to give them a "manual" - every single word translated for them!
Sorry - "whino" comment made me laugh like crazy - we get "whingerbreadmen" for gingerbreadmen from ds1!

I couldn't work out where he'd learnt the word "wino". I was rather relieved when I worked it out.