Speech therapy question - think we are doing it wrong!! help please

[allaboutme]

DS is nearly 4yo.
He has been referred for speech therapy due to being delayed in learning how to pronounce things. He struggles with most letters (ie cant say F, S, C, Z, and more)
Most people apart from me find it very difficult to understand a lot of what he is saying.
There is massive waiting list for speech therapy. The SLT has given us a workbook to do at home and a couple of 'assignment' type things to get him started in the mean time.

The work book is all about the letter 'F' and we've been making good progress with this to the extent that DS can actually say 'fffff' now and is able to say 'fffff bour' instead of saying 'bour' when he means 'four'

The only problem is that he is wanting so much to get the hang of it that he is starting to try and pronounce lots of words 'correctly' and is adding 'fffff' on to the front of various words that dont start with F!

Which brings me on to the first assignment... we are making a scrapbook with a different page per letter and are cutting out and sticking in pictures from magazines that come under each sound.
DS cant seem to get it at all.
We are on the D page for example and we have a picture of a dog and a frog... I say look which one sounds like 'duh' - is it the Dog? or the FFFrog? he says ummmmmmm, duh...frog?

Am I messing this all up completely??
Should I just stop it all and wait until he can see the proper SLT and then explain why we havent done the assignments??
Am worried that he will get harder to understand rather than easier!!!

Bumping for you.....

thanks

nobody?

My ds had a little trouble with his speech my hv mentioned a language play and learn group where there is someone trained for help learning to speak can you ask if they run any of those my ds caught up in about 2 months and now speaks better than most of the other kids.

I don't know if this is relevant as DS1 doesn't have speech difficulties, but at the least this will be a bump for you!

DS1 used to say 'y' for 'l' (as in ye-yoe for yellow etc etc). When he finally worked out how to say 'l' he substituted it for all 'y' words (so 'you' became 'lou' for example). He carried on doing this for a few months before gradually sorting it out in his mind. I didn't say anything, and discouraged others from correcting him because I just thought it would cause more confusion.

Maybe this is the same thing with your little boy?

My little boy (3.5) also had a lot of problems with pronounciation and I took him to private speech therapy. From what you've said it sounds like your doing the right things, my son had to practice 's' a lot which involved doing things like saying whether an object went in the 'sea' or a cup of 'tea'. And also practising saying the sound separately and then together with other sounds, e.g.'k' and then k-ar, k-ow, k-ee etc.. and then altogether as one sound kar. He also had whole pages of items with the same sound at the beginning which he had to name and after lots of practise he slowly improved and although he still doesn't prounounce everything perfectly is loads better than he was! Hope that helps..

hi, have you been given any visual cues to help you? I've used Jolly Phonics actions, so for a word beginning with 'd', you would say 'd, d, d (while pretending to bang a drum, which is the action for d) dog'. it might make him more confused at this stage...sorry that's not much help!

also he's still quite little, so it will take him a while to get the idea of the activity and to listen for the sounds at the beginning of words.

how long have you been doing these exercises?

Hi there,
I haven't posted here before, but I've just read your question about speech therapy. I am a trained speech and elocution teacher and I have had lots of children with pronounciation difficulties over the years. I have to say that I have not heard anything positive about Speech therapy provided by the NHS and most of my pupils have come as a result of not having any success with NHS speech therapy. Most speech problems are correctable, so don't worry. I would advise that you find your nearest Elocution or qualified Speech and Drama teacher and go to them. If they are properly trained then they will have experience of helping children from the age of about 3 to overcome speech diffculties. You can get a list of your nearest teachers from LAMDA (London Academy of Speech and Drama). If you live in Sussex or nearby then I would be happy to help.

I am an NHS SALT.

The last comments are astounding.

Elocution teachers deal with pronunciation rather than phonological disorder/delay (which is what the OP describes).

Elocution teachers are unable to register with the health professionals council as they are not suitably qualified.

I have much success with problems like this in my NHS role.

Please disregard this person's advice - I will get back and reply to your OP when I have a minute and give you some advice. I was just concerned that you might take this nonsense seriously.

Wow! Feeling threatened are we? I don't think you have any right to call my advice nonsense. I am only speaking as I find. Whether you are a successful speech therapist is entirely up to you, but I have had many pupils come to me who have not had good experiences with Speech Therapists. There are many different ways to treat speech difficulties and, as with conventional medicine and homeopathy, it depends on the child and what works for them. You are clearly a NHS supporter, which is your right, but you have no experience to draw on to say that Speech and Drama teachers or Elocution teachers are rubbish. I suggest you wind your neck in a bit and consider that there may be other approaches that are just as successful as yours. Your arrogance is amazing and you clearly are so narrow minded. I have helped many children, some with learning difficulties as well as speech problems, that Speech Therapy has been unable to help. Whether you choose to believe that or not is entirely up to you, but you have no basis to say that I am some sort of fraud. You also have no right to prevent the person seeking advice from getting different views, opinions and options. You are not the only person on the planet with experience in this area, so why don't you let the parents decide what's best?

Hi all about.

Have a dc with very severe communication difficulties who is practically non verbal but signs.It MAY be worth trying a post on the SN board also,as there is often lots of good advice from sn mums with children with speech issues.

There is a SALT who frequently posts there (Moondog) who has given me good advice in the past.

(I have found NHS SALT'S to be very helpful,TBH though unfortunately very thin on the ground.I think you can go private but iirc it is quite costly about £50 for a consult)