can't say g or c sounds

[Quadrophenia]

my ds is 3 and a half and can't make these sounds, he has a fantastic vocab but still sounds very babyish (I didn't notice until i heard one of his peers speaking). Is this something I should act on at all or will it just come. TIA

DD was the same and sorted itself out in reception when they do so much focused work on phonics. hth.

thanks, its school that worries me as I thought it may impede on his learning of sounds so that is reassuring. Can i ask what sounds your dd used instead, c is replaced with a t and g is replaced with a d.

My friends boy couldn't say words with s. Always replaced them with d. Like that until gone 5, no problems at school and it just gradually disappeared.

I was talking to a speech and language therapist about exactly this speech issue a couple of weeks ago.

She said that they don't do anything until a child reaches about 5, as so many children replace the "front" sounds like c. In so many cases, they just tend to sort themselves out, so they don't do anything until 5.

thankyou emmatom

Those subsititutions are normal. DS1 (5 next month) is only just sortiing out K and g. He was signed off speech therpay ages ago (when there were a whole host of other sounds he couldn't make as well). It hasn't affected his phonics learning at all.

that is reassuring, it was the learning of phonics that really bothered me, presumably although he can't say the sound he can distinguish between a c and a t.

doesn't have any problem at all.

thankyou

oh that should be ds2- if ds1's only problems were k and g I would be skipping in daisy's. He can't say anything (or spell anything).

ds was 5 in Nov and still has problems with pronouncing certain letters (r's are still w's, double consonants like sn and sw are coming along but we have to make him stop and say it slowly to get it right) and I can't say it's affected his phonics one bit at all. If anything, I think all the emphasis on sounding the letters has helped his speech.

thankyou foxinsocks
it would seem this is fairly common then its been bothering me for ages but kept forgetting to post about it!

I am late to return, but basically my experience was what other people are describing. DD just came home from school one day saying "I say 'cake', now, but I used to say 'take'; 'clock', not 'tock'", etc.

I was very worried that she would struggle at school for the same reasons as you, but it's been the very opposite. Working on the phonics really helped her understand how to say things right. She has an autumn birthday, though. I wonder if it would have been so easy if she were summer-born.

as an SLT I would treat k/g substitution from 4 years (maybe later with boys). Fronting back sounds is very common at this age.

Message withdrawn

My youngest replaced C with t too. The therapist that he was refered too showed him lots of flash cards with pictures on.

He said 'take' when he saw a picture of a cake but then he said 'teacup' perfectly.

She said that it was a very common issue that should resolve by itself well before school and she was right.

Same here, dd, nearly 4, we have tomputer, drandma and my personal favourite often used in our family vocabulary, tuddle (although dunt for gunk is quite funny too). It's quite odd how you adjust to it though, and I'll think she's saying for example cook, although it's come out as "took" when she is actually saying took. I don't worry about it at all as her vocab is really good and I've always assumed she'll grow out of it.

ds1 had loads of articulation problems - tons of missing sounds, and needed lots of SALT. He didn't say c or g until he was 5+, but it was a miraculous overnight transformation when he did - and never looked back.

Not all his SALT and sounds have been so successful, and he still sounds quite odd in many ways, but 'c and g' are not a problem - despite their being the last sounds that he learned.