Elocution lessons for our American daughter?

[VintageRainBoots]

Our five year old daughter will soon start school in the UK. She was born in US, has only lived in the US, and has so far been educated in the US. As a result, she speaks with an American accent.

My concern is that there are a few sounds that she still needs to work on, and moving to a different country with different speech patterns may complicate things for her. For example, she cannot pronounce the "r", as in "star" or "very." Could elocution lessons in the UK help her pronounce words the American way? That is, can a British speech therapist help her learn to say the American "star" or will she be taught the British version (which sounds a lot like "stah" to our uncivilized American ears)?

In addition, she's only recently mastered the "th" sound (before, she was approximated "th" with a "d" so that "them" was pronounced "dem"). However, I hear a lot of folks around town (and more often in London) pronouncing "th" with an "f" or "v" rather than the American "th". We spent a fair amount of time helping her with her "th" sounds; I would hate to see all that work amount to naught if she's in a class with students who use "v" or "f" instead.

So, will elocution lessons help her?

Along those same lines, does anyone have a recommendation for a speech therapist or elocution coach near Guildford?

[dreamingbohemian]

Yes I think Americans would often find 'taking the piss' situations to be disrespectful.

The whole idea of 'respect' and 'disrespectful' is very important in social relationships (at least where I come from) -- you really really don't want to be disrespectful.

But I think this is related to the fact that American society superficially can be much more rude and aggressive. It's like, I can be walking down the street and get told to fuck off, or have a stranger make fun of what I'm wearing, or any of a million annoying situations. So I don't really want to deal with disrespect from my friends too, if that makes sense? They are supposed to be the people who don't give you aggro. Teasing of course, honesty and some amount of making fun of each other, but there's usually a line.

[saintlyjimjams]

Hm interesting (although ds1 has been told to fuck off by Brits rather unnecessarily so you can get aggression here as well). I did find I had to think rather more about my interactions with Americans than my interactions with Australians, Kiwis or Japanese (which seemed very British: bring a gift if visiting, get to know someone, then take the piss). Which was a surprise.

[TalkinPeace2]

Which New York accent? There are several. Same as there is no homogeneous London accent.
The difference between the Bronx and the upper East Side is as radical as that between South Ken and Catford
The racial differences between accents within lower Manhattan are confusing enough!
OP
Your DD will turn out talking in what ever way gets up your nose the most. Live with it.

[dreamingbohemian]

When I was young I had a very strong Bronx-type accent. Then I moved around a lot so it gradually got watered down (in part because in some places people said they couldn't understand what I was saying!) When I'm upset or tired or drunk though it comes out again, very strongly.

I love it, I genuinely cannot understand why people have an aversion to it.

[mathanxiety]

The completely different style of personal interaction was one of the big things that hit me when I first went to the US (from Ireland). There was no slagging/piss taking. It was all deadly earnest. I have to say though, I never encountered gratuitous aggression on the street or at work either I have to say. You couldn't go out and about in Dublin without some complete stranger hailing you with their opinion / whatever was on their mind - whether good or bad.

What bothers me most here is the idea of the little girl trying to talk with her mother and being corrected. That gets my goat. It silences children when you do that to them, and it gives them major problems in the self confidence area.

People are entitled to their opinions of how other adults speak, but not how children speak -- leave children out of it, let them speak, listen to what they say, not how they say it.

[wentshopping]

Hello saintly - dd3 has a prentke romich ecopoint 2 - so, yes, it does have an American accent. (A bland electronic one ) But, as we live in the US and she uses it for all her communication, then it is good that her friends/teachers/therapists are hearing a familiar accent, and we sometimes read the screen to figure out what she is saying. (Background - dd3 has severe cerebral palsy, but not cognitively impaired, so she speaks using an eye-gaze device, much like Stephen Hawking).
Just to add, I have brought dds up to talk as they wish, but have explained the "English" words to them so they slip back into UK-speak when they are with their grandparents. To me this is how to be respectful to the culture you are living in, while maintaining respect for the one your family is from.

[saintlyjimjams]

Ah ds1 has a vantage lite which I think is from the same manufacturers (although they seem to have replaced the vantage now? perhaps with the accent - although his has more keys than the one I can see). Because his needs to be quick we have a bland voice (the more natural ones have a slight delay between pressing and getting the voice - we need it as fast as possible). Although actually his screen looks more like the eco point on the website. We use Unity on his although it looks as though they're in the process of renaming that as well. He's only had it for a year, but my GOD, what a difference! He loves his talker and is using it very well indeed. He has a lot to say (catching up on 13 years of silence I think).

[saintlyjimjams]

And I don't care that it's in an american accent - we've waited a long time to hear what he thinks! :)

[TalkinPeace2]

the content is usually more important than the accent ....

[wentshopping]

Oh, absolutely, saintly, I know just to hear our kids say anything is a gift. Fancy moaning about what accent they might pick up.
DD3 has worked her way through various devices - a Mercury before this one, which was head switch operated, and we also have a tango for "fun" (- that seems so bizarre, to give a child the means to talk only in certain situations) She also uses Unity - we were told that Unity is the one language (for devices) that has endured while others have come and gone, and while it doesn't seem to make sense when you first see the icons, as soon as you "get it" it is easy. DD3's ecopoint had some problems a while ago, and the guy on the company helpdesk.... was an ecopoint user - how cool is that!
Sorry for hijack OP, but for those of us dealing with real speech difficulties your post appears so frivolous.

[saintlyjimjams]

Unity appears bonkers at first sight, but ds1 just clicked with it from the beginning. We'd tried things like proloquo2go before but the category stuff just doesn't really do it for him. But unity? I didn't expect the trial to work but from the first introduction he was happy with it. I think because it's fast. I am now often to be found asking him to show me how to say something

[madwomanintheattic]

Went, it used to make me laugh that the signing started with singing and nursery rhymes... Because clearly you need Old MacDonald before 'milk please' or 'I need a wee!'



I was a little upset that the op continued the wind up after I mentioned sn earlier, but you can't stop a good joke.



I'm not, btw. I can see that it would be a good wind up on a Sunday afternoon. And there really are folk that are so precious out there, which is why it works.

[wentshopping]

Yes, me too. Have you got any speech apps on an ipad? I would like something really portable for dd, but she cannot use a touch screen with great accuracy - accurate enough to play a game, but not to say something quickly. Apparently there is something coming out with a frame to fit over the ipad screen to divide up the buttons.

[wentshopping]

Yes mad she didn't rise to my comment about the drive-thru lady understanding when I droppped the "please " from the end of my sentence.

[saintlyjimjams]

Not at the moment, although they are brining out unity (which ds1 uses) onto the iPad and I will get it to use at the beach etc. I think it's already available in the States and you can buy quite a few different covers.

It's this: aacapps.com/lamp/

I think ds1 has access to more symbols from the front screen - need to check, but it looks a good back up

[saintlyjimjams]

whoops aacapps.com/lamp/

[wentshopping]

yes, saintly, that is what I was thinking about but I think it is v. expensive.

[wentshopping]

eek $299.99

[slug]

The Ki-nig-uts pronouncenation comes from

[stopcallingmefrank]

I love how this thread has gone from the 5 year old's elocution lessons through George W Bush and Margaret Thatcher to disabled kids' communication devices. The joys of MN!

[wigglybeezer]

I am going to be a bit controversial here and tell you that I managed to get a speech therapist to do some work with DS2 on pronouncing his "th" sounds. She was seeing him because he has Social communication issues but I asked her to do some work on his sounds as he has a wee bit if a lisp and his mispronunciations were affecting his spelling ( still do in fact). She grudgingly agreed but implied that I should accept it as it was the local way of speaking, despite DS2 (as is common with children with S&C issues) otherwise sounding like little lord Fauntleroy as he completely failed to pick up the local Scottish accent.
It didn't work by the way, his brother cals him posh boy and he still says "f" for "th".

[saintlyjimjams]

Yeah I know. For ds1 I think the price would be worth it as I often panic as he dangles over rock pools with 6 grands worth of communication aid dangling from his neck, but 300 dollars isn't exactly a snip.

[BooksandaCuppa]

Still struggling to imagine how a 'British' person says 'very' without the 'r' in it?

Or how the correct use of the 'th' sound is somehow 'American'? FWIW, I don't know anyone who replaces it with 'f'...

[TalkinPeace2]

Booksandacuppa
"Very" when said in Sloane Square is pronounced "vahy" and "yah" will be later on in the sentence

[GrimmaTheNome]

FWIW, I don't know anyone who replaces it with 'f'...

lots of children do - free instead of three. It can persist longer than most childish substitutions, into adults even - my DD still does it quite a bit. Its not something she's learned from anyone- not me or DH, not the local (NW)accent.

It does happen 'dahn sarf' in adults too.