At what age are speech problems diagnosed? - DS is 3.

[Astrophe]

DS's grasp language and his vocab is excellent, but he has always had trouble saying some sounds. He has always replaced "sh" with a very odd nasal sound (very cute though!) and is now also replacing 'sh' with 'th' - and sometimes still with the nasal sound, depending on the word.

I haven't been worried about it, but it did occur to me that there will come a time when it wont be 'normal' for him to mispronounce anymore...and I wondered when that time is?

TIA

Hope this is reassuring - ds is just 4 - when he tries really hard he can now just about say 'sh' although it still tends to come out more sss than sh. 'th' is another that he finds difficult. He has started school nursery and no one has suggested that he has any worrying problem with pronunciation.

That is good to know mistlethrush. I certainly don't want to label him with a 'problem' if there is none, but I just have no idea what the normal time frame for speech development is, and I don't want to miss the window if he does have a problem.

I think I will ask the GP when we are there next if there is any problem with his nose/sinus that could cause the back-of-throat nasal sound.

He sounds within the normal range, Astrophe, ime. There are rough guidelines about when they should make certain sounds, but they are very rough guidelines and I don't know which list/guideline is truly the authoritative reference compared to other guidelines (and lists you find on the Internet).

DS (nearly 5) is starting SALT tomorrow; he's my 3rd dc and although others were late with language, ds is only one to get SALT (so far, lol). So I kind of know how bad it has to be to be That bad.

right - thanks all I will think no more of it then, but will get the GP to just check his ears and sinus are clear whenever we are there next - no rush.

(nice to see you again Apostrophe ;) keeping away from the pirate clothing?)