speech therapy

[sevenseas]

Hello, I have posted on this before but cannot find my post. My DD(5) has trouble saying her R's. How do I go about finding a speech therapist or advice on helping her with this?

My dd2 (5) has a stammer.
I spoke to her teacher who got in touch with the special needs liason lady/teacher. I dont know what her proper title is.
I also spoke to the school nurse and then also found the contact details of the local NHS speech therapy unit.

All in I made a lot of noise until one of them listened. 6 weeks later DD2 has had her first assesment and is not on the list for the treatment.

Try everyone who will listen. Eventually you will get to the right person for your DD.

Good luck.

Hi

All children gradually pick up the full repertoire of adult sounds and typically may take up to 6 1/2 -7 to learn them all (or longer for some) e.g. children will learn sounds which are easy for them to say first such as d, m, p hence 'dada'

If your child only has difficulty with 'r' don't worry this is one of last sounds children learn so it's developmentally 'normal' not to be able to say 'r'......other late developing sounds include ch, j, l, sh, th and 'blends' such as sl, sm, sn, fr, br, cr etc so she may not say these correctly at 5 either.

However, it may be worth getting a speech therapy assessment to check other 'earlier' sounds are in place.
Most referrals are via Health Visitor, GP or school. In some areas parents can self refer if you can find contact details of the local speech therapy dept.
Waiting lists can be long and your daughter's difficulty would be classed as very minor (although maybe not to you). If you wanted to pay for a private speech therapy assessment look for a registered independent therapist via www.helpwithtalking.com

Hi there,

I got in touch with the school today and they assessed her straight away! The HT told me that she can make all her sounds (when asked to) including blends and that the problem is probably lazy speech and that I should just pick her up on it (though maybe not all the time as I can't see that going down too well).

So it seems there was no need for me to worry, but I am still glad I asked them about it.

Thats good then. It never does any harm to ask.