DS's speech still isn't that clear at 3.4. Should I be doing anything about it?

[Jojay]

His speech seemed to develop normally, but hasn't progressed much recently.

His vocabulary is good and he attempts a wide range of words, knows what he is trying to say etc, but his pronunciation isn't always right.

For example, he can't seem to say an 'f' sound correctly, so 'frog' would be 'rog'.

He also gets some works muddled - 'radiator' comes out as 'adirator'

I don't know if I'm worried about nothing, but it doesn't help that the two kids of the same age I see regularly are very bright little girls who gabble away very clearly, nineteen to the dozen!

Should I be pushing for a referral to a speech therapist, or will it correct itself in time?

My DC were both late developers with their speech. (They are bilingual) DD had some speech therapy, but did not get on well with the therapist so it did not help much.

Both of them made huge jumps in their speech at about age 4 - 5yo and are very normal now.

Two of my friends had DC the same weekend that I had DS and their DDs were both very advanced, it would have been easy to become uncertain about DS's development had I not already seen how his sister had been.

There are a few SALTs on MN, hopefully someone will be along to let you know what he should be doing at around that age. My DS is 5.5yo and still mispronounces some words. I think it is normal.

Thank you, that's good to hear.

As you say, it's so hard not to make comparisons, but he's my eldest so we have no others in the family to go by.

We have pre-school parents evening this week, so I'll ask them what they think.

Thanks again

Could he have problems with his hearing?
Boys speech generally develops slower than girls so try not to make too many comparisons with the little girls you know

I was worrying about DD1 a few months back - your post could have been mine. Anyway, I had her assessed for SALT, and they said there weren't any significant issues, but that if I still had concerns in six months time, I should come back.

Well, the difference in six months has been amazing. I would say that last summer, strangers would have found it difficult to understand her approx 50% of the time. Now, i would say strangers understand her 95% of the time.

I too would listen to other children the same age and note how different their speech was to DD's. But it's true what they say, everyone develops differently. If it puts your mind at rest, speak to your HV to get your DS referred for a SALT assessment, but I would think that he is absolutely fine, and there is nothing to worry about.

How old was your DD when she was assessed LS? were there any things in particular that they looked for?

Hattee - his hearing seems fine but I guess it's a possibility. And you're right about the girls, all the ones I know seem more articulate than the boys!

Thank you both for your replies.

Sorry I'm adding this days later, My son's hearing seemed fine but his hearing test showed glue ear in the right side only. the audio people told me that he couldn't hear the ending to words which is prob why he had speech delay
He had a grommet put in at 2 yrs 3mths, and 6 mths later he's getting there
see if you can get a hearing test just to make sure

Some children age 5 and more are still having difficultes with 'f' and 's'. My DS did. He had slight glue ear but no op. He's 17 and regressed to merely grunting!

Thanks mummywhizz, that's interesting. might speak to my HV about a hearing test.

at merely grunting!!

Sorry haven't been back to thread sooner.

DD1 was about 3.4 when she was assessed. They looked for her ability to understand words, breadth of vocab, and ability to understand multiple instructions (i.e. please can you go to the kitchen, fetch your dolly and put her under the table). It was more of a conversation between the assessor and DD, rather than specific questions/answers tbh. I am struggling to remember the detail as DD2 was about 6 weeks old and I was the living dead a little bit tired

His speech doesn't sound too bad. My ds1 was assessed at about that age at which point almost all words started with a 'd' sound and the speech therapist thought he probably would get the sounds but put him on the waiting list for speech therapy which finally came through this month at 4yrs.

In the meantime I paid for private speech therapy to help and I don't know how much that helped but his prounounciation came on in leaps and bounds which really helped myself and more importantly other people understand him. Before both he and I would get really frustrated as sometimes I just couldn't figure out what he was saying unless it was in context.

The speech therapy consisted of practising words with similar sounds like tea and sea and splitting up words to practise sounds like k-ar, k-ow, k-ey etc...

I think it all depends on how much it affects his communication with other people, if he is managing then fine then you could leave it to correct itself but if he is struggling then it might be worth getting some help.

My DD is 3.6 and struggles to pronounce f and s in most words ie instead of fish, it comes out wish. Her nursery teacher said it was just immaturity and she has a huge vocabulary, used big words in lots of different contexts and nothing to worry about. I was told just to speak clearly and not correct her. Sometimes I make it fun to repeat a word and I have suggested with her "f"s to put her lower lip under her teeth to get the right action and that helps.
Finally enough, words that her older sister found hard (hospital, lorry, animal) she manages no problem!
Hope this helps.