S and Z sounds in middle of words, does your 3yo say them?

[zebra]

Actually, DD isn't 3yo until Saturday.... she speaks much more poorly than other children we know. Quite hard to understand, although within the family we can usually work it out. The only consistent thing I can take note of is that she doesn't say S or Z sounds within a word. So she can say "See", but ice cream comes out "Ah Heam", please comes out "Peeee", her own name (isabel) comes out "ih-ha-bel".

Does it matter? All the other little ones we know close to her in age can say S and Z fine.

My Leaflet that I got from the NHS SALT says:-

'Many children still distort r, l, s, z, sh, ch, y and th at 5 years. These sounds may not be consistently correct unti 7-8 years'

My sons speech is slowly getting there - he's just 3. The SALT (Who we see sporadically, as DS' speech is not classed as 'bad') gave us some exercises to practice at home. Which has helped. - If you want I'll see if I can dig them out.

DD makes these sounds correctly but I think the range of verbal ability at 3 is huge.

Would be interested in the exercises Furball. Have tried to get her to "hiss" like a snake, but she won't play the game.

I'm going to ask HV what she thinks, too, but wanted to ask around first. DD can say 'sk' as in school/playschool, but can't do 'sn' -- so snail, snake become 'nail & 'nake.

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zebra, my ds (3 in Nov) also can't do double consonants starting with s. So we have 'now for snow and 'nake for snake! He also can't do 'ch' or soft g. We've only just managed to get him to do 'bl' and that is very recent and he only does it when he's concentrating. I think a lot of his problems started because he could talk very early on but has carried his bad pronounciation through from when he started talking and wasn't expected to pronounce properly. If we sit down and show him the proper mouth movements, then sometimes he can do it (but no way he can do 'sn'!).

I have a dd who is 4 who has perfect pronounciation and I always thought most kids were like that. But since she has been bringing friends home from school, I've realised that there are plenty of children who's speech is very similar to ds!

I would speak to HV as she will know whether dd needs any speech help. We're not going to bother yet as I think it will come with time but I would go now if you are at all worried because I know the waiting lists for speech therapists are very long. This was really just to let you know that you're not alone!

Hi, My ds is 3 end of November. His pronounciation sounds very similar to your dd Zebra, distorts s, y,f, and please is pees. Most people can understand his speech, although sometimes it can be difficult. We took him to see a pead ( crap HV) as I was a bit concerned and he said that this was normal and just speech immaturities, which will correct themselves. As long as they are talking in sentences and using pronouns- you, me, I etc.
Don't worry too much, I know thats easy to say , but she does sounds very similar to my DS.

I wouldn't worry at all at this stage - it sounds fairly normal to me. DS still had quite a few words that he didn't quite pronounce correctly at 3 but now at 3.5 his speech is pretty much perfect.

The only words I can think of now that are not quite right are

banana - 'mana'
yellow - 'lellow' (even though he can say 'yes' and 'yoghurt'!)

Skate my ds is 6 and still says 'lellow' for yellow ! He knows it begins with a "Y" though.
I think it's cute as it's the last of his baby words.

furball - does you leaflet say anything about "v" and "t" in the middle of words? ds (just 3) still says "bockle" instead of bottle, for example, and his name (oliver) as "ol-i-ba". Is it anything to worry about? He can say yellow and ice cream properly though, so I guess they're all different?

Hi Zebra,

since you are asking here I thought I would answer.

I think your DD speaks less clearly than most other kids of the same age that I have met. She speaks a lot but I often find her difficult to understand. You are tuned in to her and can understand much more. If I were you I would probably talk to the HV about finding out if there are things you can do to help her. Are you sure her hearing is ok ?

Maybe if she settles in at the childminder or playgroup her pronunciation will improve as she realises other people don't understand her so well as at home.

My DS1 also misses out many consonants - can't think which ones at the moment (definitely has problems with words like snake, and words like Gill and Julie), and doesn't respond well to us trying to get him to say them , but maybe your DD would respond better. I think there are games you can play with balloons where they can feel the vibration of the sounds you and they are saying - she might like that.

LunarSea - v is 4 years and t is 2yr 6m.

Zebra - Sods law, DS can do the exercises so I've thrown the sheet away.

Anyway - from memory.....

L = pretend you are licking a lolly, so stick you tongue out and and say Lick

F = Prend a your hand is a firework and as you raise it say fffffff irework (as in a long fa)

M = Rub your tummy and say Mmmmm

K = Pretend you are turning a key in a lock and say ka ka ka

S = Move you hand like a snake and say a long 'snake' (it's the S of the hiss you want not the beginning.

furball - he can do "t" as in table, train, trees, tape, etc, or even as in better, shut and cat, it's just the "it" sound at the end of a word (often comes out as "ip") and "ot" in the middle of a word (as "ock") combinations which are a bit flaky. Am a bit concerned now if those should have been ok 6 months ago?

LunarSea - I don't know personally, I'm only going by a scrappy bit of typed paper given to me by the NHS SALT lady. It's probably nothing, if you are concerned, best to get in touch with your HV and see about seeing a SALT, who will know whats what.

Don't have an HV - last one left when ds was about 5 months old, and hasn't been replaced!