2.5 yr old and speech : 's' and 'sh'

[SecondhandTable]

Hi, sorry if this sounds stupid but she's my first so I don't know what's 'normal', and she has a dummy so that makes me more paranoid (I know, I know...). I've not got no concerns about her speech more widely as the HV confirmed she's meeting her milestones and she's a chatterbox. However she cannot say 'sh' at all, and she says 's' by sticking her tongue out, so it's not a clear sound. I forgot to ask the HV about this. Is this 'normal' for this age and will it improve itself? Is it caused by the dummy or do other children without dummies do it too?

Completely normal, if she is otherwise talking and communicating to people around her.

Oh god my 2.5 year old's speech is still really unclear and you're making me wonder if I should be worried lol. You can understand a lot of what she says but she still misses a lot of the beginning and end sounds off a lot of her words and blends words together when she is talking and some of her words come out just plain wrong (eg little sounds more like 'oigle' and milk (qualtz) I wasn't worried til I saw your post haha. I thought as a general rule understanding half of what they're saying at age 2 and 80% by age 3 was about what is expected

Oh I'm so sorry to have worried you - don't worry please, my daughter's speech is similar to yours. I would say I probably understand more like 75 per cent of the time now, but still of course a lot I'm thinking what??? Or having her repeat it a few times to think it over before I understand haha. I just meant that I had no concerns over any other aspect of her speech and this is one thing I'd particularly noticed. Probably I am more paranoid because of the dummy although she has only had this for sleep for the past month or so (not without a fight that is still ongoing though...!).

Normal for that age, my ds could not say 's' at all at that age, we saw the speech and language therapist at a drop in clinic and she tested him on the sounds using flashcards of simple pictures and confirmed he was on track. S is one of the later sounds to develop apparently. My ds used to say 'buh' instead of 's'. If I recall he got it right by 3.5 I think?

My little boy also misses out a lot of beginning and end sounds. He doesn't sound out the s at beginning of words, but does at the end. He can say s or hiss like a snake tho. I'm not overly concerned as I've noticed he is improving over time and I think he'll get there eventually

Totally normal. I think that's about age 5/6 yo when you'd start to worry about it. (dc had speech therapy)

My niece does the same with "b" instead of "s". Most noticeable when she says "bider" for spider (she loves playing spiders with her hands). She also can't say "th" or "y" ("thank you" is "tan too"). She is 2 & 3/4

Agree with others, sounds normal!

Thanks all I am reassured