How to help dd pronounce her name?

[Anon682]

And when should they be able to do this?

Dd (3 and a half) has a longish name, let's say "Elizabeth". Myself and nursery call her Elizabeth, but dad, grandparents, friends, all shorten it to "Beth"

If someone asks dd her name she says "Eff" if I ask her full name she'll say "Izzeff"

I didn't think too much of it until she had a hospital appointment the other day and was asked to confirm her name, she replied Eff, and they ended up triple checking her identity to make sure I'd brought the right bloody child! 😂

Does she have a speech impediment or delay in general? Does she struggle with consonants in general?

She did have a delay at first but by the time the health visitor was going to refer her she had caught up. I feel she's on track, I asked nursery and they say they haven't had enough time to give their thoughts on it (she's been there about 5 months but lots of staff on and off with COVID and holidays)

I wouldn't worry about it. It will come.

My son couldn't pronounce his sister's name for ages. He just called her baby until he was about 4 when it clicked for him.

My son pronounced his names with w sound instead of r sound

It's cute

Break her name down into syllables. Put a coloured dot on a piece of card for each syllable of her name. Say her name one syllable at a time, pointing to each dot as you do so. Then get her to do this. After a couple of practices, keep it to hand and point to each dot to remind her to say each syllable. Once she gets the hang of this, you can point to a fingertip on your hand for each syllable, surreptitiously, as a gentle reminder.

My DD has a speech delay. For longer words we clap it out in syllables and repeat. It will eventually come.

You need to break it down for her and practice it.
so E-Liz-a-Beth

It's probably worth listening carefully to the rest of her speech, focussing on the sounds in her name that she isn't managing and hearing the impact on other words. Then practice those sounds in isolation / simpler words. As those sounds get easier for her to pronounce then help her put them back into her name as well.

I was "Buffy" at home for a while, as that was about all I could manage of Elizabeth. I can imagine a few names that are nearly as bad but not many, I guess from your thread you've got one of those few others :)

Surely just encourage her to use a shortened name?

I can't say I've ever heard my DC call themselves by their full names.

I would expect her to be able to say Beth at 3.5yo, although Elizabeth may be too much to get 100% correct if she's on the lower end of the 'normal' range for speech. Can she say other 'B' words correctly eg ball, bug? I agree with the PP that I'd be listening very closely to the rest of her speech to see if she struggles with the same sounds in other words. Have you got a trusted mum-friend who'll be honest if you ask them what they think of her speech?

It's quite normal at that age to struggle forming letters like B so "eth" is the next best thing. Or if her name is Isabel, "el" would be next, if her name was charlotte, "Arlot" would be all she could say for example. You can model forming the letters- showing her how your mouth moves to say her name, saying other words like Bee, Bottle, Belly etc to show the B sound

Yes she can say her other b's, ball, bell, bath. I half wonder if she's just got used to it from when she couldn't pronounce b's and it's stuck.

Unfortunately my two close mum friends who I trust to be honest have extremely speach delayed children so in their eyes dd is way ahead. We are going to spend some time with extended family soon who are more experienced parents than me so they might be able to comment on it.

It is really cute when they do stuff like this, but as they approach school age it's really important to correct them else it can make learning phonics/sounding out words to spell really difficult. My DCs' school actively ask the parents to correct any cute mispronounciations (whilst also acknowledging why we would want to keep them). I reluctantly corrected all but 'squeal' with my DCs, which has now become the official family word for a squirrel, but having been through the phonics program twice now, I can see their point.

@GrassWillBeGreener ours is still a Buffy although of course in Teens years she is Liz to her friends.

💕

My friends daughter had issues one of them being milkshake. Apparently kids should be able to pronounce words by the age of 8. I would say its worth checking she doesn't have any hearing issues and you need to break it down for her.

My ds is called Fynn. To himself he was Bynn. For ages it seemed!
You will have fond memories of this in years to come ime op.

I have a three year old who also can't pronounce his own name. I have probably made the situation worse by falling into the habit of calling him by the name he calls himself so I fear it may stick forever now!

Our kids had a friend known as Yikes, as that was how his sister said Alex.

You could go the royal route and work on "Lillibet".

Well it's not helping that she effectively has 2 different names is it? It's not even as if Beth & beth in Elizabeth are pronounced the same. Which does she think is the name she's telling officials?

Seriously though, an ENT specialist once wearily told me that the number one cause of a delay in speech was a hearing problem. My youngest fooled us, nursery staff, doctors and a speech language therapist. He was very good at picking up non-verbal clues and it is likely he taught himself to lipread. He had to have speech therapy to catch up because children acquire sounds at different ages and he had missed some of those sounds. Children with glue ear, for example, may hear well enough to follow instructions but not well enough to say those words themselves.

He loved chocolate and didn't get much of it. I was behind him and was offering to buy him a chocolate bar and there wasn't even a flicker that he heard me. It was then I realised just how deaf he was because he'd have sold his soul for a chocolate bar. He got grommets for glue ear.

There is a lot of prejudice about glue ear but my son was the second child who had every advantage including a big warm house with a garden in an exclusive suburb with private medical care on tap. It is not just a disease of overcrowding and poverty. Within a week of the hearing test he was in having a grommets insertion (as the surgeon had a gap on her private list). She told me his ears were particularly bad so his hearing really was minimal.

While we were waiting for the grommets, the advice was to get down low with the child and speak clearly and loudly while facing the child to maximise the chances of the child hearing.

I had to argue with the HV for DD to get a hearing test prior to being referred for speech therapy despite having been through the whole glue ear process with an older one.

Youngest one fooled the hearing test people or they were just incompetent they kept saying she was bored of playing the hearing game. Erm no after going elsewhere turns out she was hearing impaired in the high frequencies (the ones you need to learn speech) and too sensitive in the low frequencies 🤬

Can you do anything with nonsense rhymes for each syllable of her full name?

My BFF and I managed by accident to sort out her older daughter's inability to say her baby sister's name (she said Mee-ee for Milly) by saying things like "Milly is a silly billy", to which she responded indignantly, "Milly's NOT a silly Billy!", pronounced perfectly.

With Eff I assume she is trying to say Beth. Can she pronounce other B words OK?

I'd work on getting Beth right first. Break it down so she is saying B B B B B a few times then add the eff/eth ending.

I'd tackle adding the E Liz A bit once she's got Beth pronounced a bit clearer.

My daughter struggled with the sounds in her name at that age. Along the lines of Moggy instead of Molly. We had to work on the L sound a lot and once at school she had some speech therapy which really helped with the sounds she struggled with.

This.

My sister had dreadful glue ear and it affected her speech, one notable thing was missing the first letter/sound of a word. I would push for a hearing test and a check of her ears.