4yo struggles with speech sounds

[VioletLilies]

DS is 4.5 and in reception. He has a few sounds he can’t say - c,g,q,j,x and sh/ch. for example, god and dog are both said dod, and cat is tat. I don’t think it’s a hearing issue as when he says a word incorrectly, eg toffee instead of coffee, and I repeat it back to him he says no and gets frustrated and keeps repeating it until I work it out and say it correctly, and he can hear that I’ve said the word he means. It’s mainly sounds from the throat too. I do find that people often ask me what he has said.

he’s recently had a check at school and the teacher identified he was missing some sounds but as he didn’t meet any of the other criteria - good understanding, good expression, fine socially - they couldn’t refer. She said just to keep modelling correctly which is what I do.

I’ve thought about going to the gp, but not sure if they would also say he couldn’t be referred as didn’t struggle in any other areas? Has anyone had a child who does pick up the sounds without extra support? (I can tell when saying the individual sounds he is trying hard with c and g, we’ve used visual phonics to think about where the sound comes from and it’s better than it was but they still aren’t formed properly and he doesn’t do it when he says words). Or would it be worth me trying to get a private assessment and support?

We have one that got sounds confused in the middle of words so cossee instead of coffee.

Where is it that you're asking for a referral to? Is it SLT?

Yes sorry, SALT!

My child had problems with the same sounds! It's called fronting. For each sound, I thought about how I make the sound with my mouth and what my child can currently do to make a similar sound. For 'g', I got my child to put their head back, with their mouth open, and pretend to gargle or drink/gulp down a pretend drink. They got the sound immediately. The c,q sounds were variations of g.

Just wanted to add that ours improved once we'd had their eyes tested and they could see properly and had started to learn to read.

It might be worth doing this simple progress checker. If it says that they need some support you can book a free session with one of their SLTs. It is free but it is a Charity so you might want to make a donation

Did you manage to do the progress checker @VioletLilies?

Thank you, I’ve done it and it says he might need some help with speech so will take a look at their resources.

@Fitzthefool he enjoyed pretending to gargle so will try that again!

Ok so speak to the school nurse or SENCO and tell them what the progress checker says.

Speech & Language UK is a very well respected charity so I would expect them to take it seriously and do a referral to SLT.

If they won't then see your GP and ask them

And did you see my post about getting their eyes tested too?

I did thanks but don’t think there’s anything wrong with his sight, he’s started reading fine. I’ll contact gp and see what they say

Some other things to check for; tongue, lip, cheek ties and oversized tongue. My child has an oversized tongue, dentist diagnosed it, so their tongue comes out a lot when speaking and they're a bit 'lispy'. There's nothing to be done about it now, we'll just see how they grow.

I would definitely get a hearing test. My son has speech sound issues and we recently found out he has moderate hearing loss via a test although you wouldn't have thought it. With his grommets following surgery he is slowly starting to pronounce words more clearly.

Hi, my 4 year old is similar. I contacted the health visitor team and they arranged a hearing test, which will be next week. SENCo wouldn't refer for anything until she'd had her hearing tested.