ds has a speech problem....ideas how to help him please..

[chatee]

Hiya,
my ds aged 3.2 years is having problems saying certain sounds, the last month it has become more apparent as we have visited family and friends and i have had to 'translate' on many occasions, even for his daddy on a few occassions.
now his nursery have 'mentioned' that they sometimes struggle to understand him especially when he is excited.... so where and what do i do now(and ideas please for whilst i am waiting for any specialist input)

i thought of the jolly phonics range from elc(but i really can not see ds sitting and enjoying this, and it kind of goes against my principles to do such 'formal teaching at such a young age'
but i do not still want to be in this position in 12 months time and him to struggle in reception class(he is already quite a loner in nursey)
tia xx

well until somebody more knowledgable/experienced comes along I'll make tentative suggestions that hopefully aren't b*llocks:-

maybe reading the usborne learning to read phonics type books with him "toad on the road" et al - as they repeat the same vowel sounds ad nauseam? also I think that blowing bubbles/sucking drinks through straws is meant to be helpful if a child has problems phsyical making the sounds.

Chatee what letter sounds does he struggle with? My ds sees a SALT due to not being understood by others so his pronunciation is not very good. Jolly phonics do a cd that is quite good that we listen to while painting etc so not to sit and 'do' as such but just in the background. Also as MTS said the usbourne phonic reader books are quite good[did you get any MTS?] to help pronunciation. MY SALT tld me not to correct DS but to repeat word back putting empahsis on sounds missing. There are some sounds that at 3 he shouldnt actually be making yet.

dd2 3.6 has just been refered to speech thearpy for the same problem.
Ds1 and DD1 both had speech therepy too which worked wonders they both have no speech problems now.
They both did individual sessions from 4 and group sessions during their reception year which I presume will be the same for dd2 although I am waiting to here. I just followed their program alot of which was repeating back the word correctly and practicing sounds infront of as mirror.
Hope that helps

Nemo - yes I got them but is DS showing any interest .

Talk to him as much as possible making sure he is seeing your mouth as you speak, repeat back to him what he has said and encourage him to repeat what you have said. I really would not worry about phonics at this stage as that is to do with reading and writing. Speaking precedes all of that. Leave the phonics until reception and year one. He does not need that now.

Hi - just to say that ds1 had difficulty with quite a few sounds when he was 3 - he couldn't pronounce "sm", "r", "l" or "th". He's 5 now and has come on leaps and bounds since starting in reception last September. He still struggles with "th" but everything else has fallen into place and everyone understands him - but up until he was nearly 5 this wasn't the case! So I suppose I'm thinking that 3.2 is still very young and it's amazing how starting at school (and my ds also went to nursery part-time and then pre-school) brings them on.

wow, thanks for the speedy replies everyone..
mummytosteven - he does have drinks through a straw , but i have been thinking that he really is a 'lazy' boy-he doesn't like certain textures of food and have only recently managed to get him to eat a piece of very small chicken.
Nemo2007 - the letters he struggles with are
b, c, d, f,m,p,r,s,v, and any sounds blended with these letters
the cd seems a good idea as we could have it on in the car sometimes(and then he possibly wouldn't realise!!)
carol3- did you just see your gp for a referral?

oh and more, thanks, sorry meant to say thanks to the first posters too- i rally do appreciate your help

chatee sounds like DS and they said he should have been able to do some of those sounds by 3. Maybe see hv or gp about referral to SALT. Ds is seen once every 3mths then given 'homework' to do and was actually the SALT who recommended the jolly phonics dvd not for learning letters or sitting doing books but just for the prenunciation of the letters as it is an easier and child friendly way to do it.

chatee, no your health visitor will refer you, they have just refered dd2 for hearing test at the hospital as well, as they do them as a matter of course now

if the child has any speech problems

I don't think there is any point just puting on a jolly phonics cd. The child need close face observation to gain any learning from it in a SALT way.

Son was similar at 3 and was referred to SALT. I was told to repeat words back to him didn't say clearly

ie if he said look at the cat (he used to say tat)

say something back like " oh yes that is a nice cat"
and realy emphasize the word "cat" clearly.

Hi chatee, ds2 who is now 4 suffered with a stammer, I know this is not the case with your ds. But the treatment that was given by a private speech therapist that I had was to start on the seven steps to fluency. Basically you start with a picture book, you would say "this is a " then ds would say the one word it is e.g. dog. You would do this until totally competant then build through the seven steps, i.e. three word sentences etc..

This is so good that ds2 stammer improved literally within a few days and now he hardly ever stammers. If you want I will dig out the material and email it you if you want me to. It may take me a few days to locate, not highly organised on the paperwork front.

Let me know.

Chatee
Having a very very similar sort of problem - my daughter is 28 mo. On the advice of a pediatrician we are getting it checked out through a speech therapist, in fact we have the assessment tomorrow afternoon. I'm happy to share with you some of their ideas when we get back.

I feel like I could have written that post - it's so similar to our situation. On the behaviour board people did recommend SALT professionals and I think tehre are a few people who post to this site who are SALT as well.

The ideas about hte books sounded good too. Will let you know how it goes.

have been trying to repeat the worst offending regular used words but he is so stubborn and he just can't say some words(doesn't help when he does the old baby blue eyes cute boy look!!)and says "no muumy it is my pushion"...bless

thanks for the further replies and yes if anyone can pass on further info i would gratefully accept and try with ds

My ds didn't talk properly until he went to school, combination of him being really lazy and me understanding his babble. The school put him straight into speech therapy and, as far as I remember, it only took a few weeks for him to start speaking properly. He's now 13 and as a consequence of the speech therapy (and his hard work) he is top of his class at English. I would agree with all of the other posters about repeating mis-pronounced words back to him, it really helps.

Chatee
My daughter had her assessment the other week. I'm not sure how relevant some of the recommendations will be for you. Regarding repeating the words, I'm not sure exactly how you're doing it but she said that when DD says a word incorrectly, don't ask her to repeat it again, just say it correctly and move on. Otherwise she may start to feel self-conscious and AVOID the word. In addition, we have had to get her off the bottle (!!!)and do things to develop her jaw/mouth muscles. She's given us some exercises, and also suggested blowing bubbles with her, and getting her to use a straw when drinking. She did say - which I knew- that sippy cups aren't better than the bottle. We also have to seen an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to check her hearing and whether she has some sort of blockage somewhere. But it did strike me you will need some advice which is tailored to your child. I am also less convinced about the books now.

Hope this helps and good luck.

By the way, the speech therapist didn't agree with us that she was "just being lazy." She fundamentally believes that children when children have a speech problem, it's not out of this reason, but because they're challenging skills to acquire and it takes time.

The hanen project do some good books for example "It takes Two talk" and you might be able to get it from your library