Help - 4yo speech impediment?

[Modestandatinybitsexy]

DS was 4 in June, he started school in September and during our parents evening they mentioned he could work on areas of his speech.

A bit of background is that he didn't really say any words until he was 2 and not reliably talking until he was 3 so he's possibly always been delayed in this area but as a pfb on both sides of the family and also looked after by MIL until he started preschool 3 days a week from 3yo we thought it would develop once he was around his peers.

But after a year of preschool and half a term of school he's come a long way but sounds babyish compared to others in his year group. Since parents evening we've been practicing /l/ and /r/ sounds but he's struggling.

Am I right to be worried or will this all work out?

If he's behind his peers I would get him some speech therapy it will help us confidence if nothing else.

You can self refer in some areas or your HV or GP will be able to refer him. I'd also ask for a referral for a hearing test, just to rule low hearing out.

This progress checker should be useful as it will confirm f he needs some extra support or not

Definitely worth trying to get a speech therapy referral. They can assess whether it's needed. The waiting list could be long, so worth finding out the process of referral for your area to get him on the list.

Speech therapy certainly can't hurt but in my experience there are usually one or two children with this sort of problem in each cohort and it tends to sort itself out as they get older.

Try to get some support from SALT if you can. Ive found that some of the children I've taught in year 1 with speech difficulties struggle with phonics which impacts their reading and writing. The sooner you can get support the better.

This might sound a bit odd but I'd also get his eyes checked. My DDs speech improved when she got glasses, turns out she couldn't see us or the books very well!

Refer for speech therapy

Get on to your hv for a referral but there will probably be a long wait.

Thank you, I'll have to go and look up who my health visitor is!

He's doing well with his other sounds so I don't think it's hearing or eyesight although we're on the lookout for these because of family history. Thinking about it I had trouble with R sounds at a similar age, apparently I refused to talk to the speech therapist so hopefully DS's goes better!

Thank you, I'll have to go and look up who my health visitor is! **

He's doing well with his other sounds so I don't think it's hearing or eyesight although we're on the lookout for these because of family history. Thinking about it I had trouble with R sounds at a similar age, apparently I refused to talk to the speech therapist so hopefully DS's goes better

You don't have to go through the HV, I'd call the Drs Receptionist and ask them how you get a referral.

The SLT will want him to have had a recent hearing test though, even if you think it's not needed so it's really best to ask for both referrals at the same time.

Getting his eyes checked was just something that helped us.