Not sure about whether to go for speech therapy

[rebeccaw]

My son is in Year 1 at school & doing ok. He's been a little slow to get going with his reading but this seems to be par for the course with little boys.

His vocabulary is excellent, but he doesn't always pronounce words very clearly and his teacher is suggesting he goes to see a speech therapist. She also thinks this will help him with reading as he will 'get' phonics better if he pronouces words more clearly. Personally I think he's just not interested in phonics; nothing to do with pronunciation.

So I'm not sure about the speech therapist... I don't want him to start thinking he has a problem. He's very confident and chatty at the moment. On the other hand, I don't want to be another couple of years down the line and it still be an issue. anyone had any experience of this and whether speech therapy is a good/bad thing to do?

Maleuca, you are talking utter bollocks.

As an SLT who has worked in both the UK and Australia (NHS and private), I can assure you that the situation here is altogether different.

I am well aware of your private SLP (speech language pathologist) system because I saw it first hand. Thankfully, we have no such problem here.

Your comments are unhelpful and irresponsible and completely irrelevant to the OP's original question.

OP - you should definitely go for the assessment. Speech patterns tend to become stubbornly laid down and more difficult to "correct" with age. Most children have grown out of their errors by 5 years, leaving only "th" and "r" and a few other "blend" sounds occasionally causing probs.

I'm not sure that 'not getting phonics'is in any way connected with speech problems. As I understand it, articulation problems are remedied by teaching correct pronunciation of phonemes (quietplease, am I correct?)

I have heard that speech therapists find that phoneme based phonics instruction helps children with articulation problems.

I agree that the OP should go for any help offered, but don't accept 'speech problems' as an excuse for not teaching a child to read.

TBH, I don't know what the current research says about this but I do think there's a link

Anecdotally, I've known children with pronunciation problems make the same errors in spelling.

When we learn to say a phoneme (sound), we lay down both a motor pattern (plan of how to get the speech muscles to say it) and a phonological representation (knowing what sound it represents, how it sounds when you make it, where you use it).

If you are laying down the wrong motor pattern (incorrect articulation) then you are generally laying down an incorrect phonological representation too (aside from difficulties specific to phonetics, like Dyspraxia).

We use this "phonological representation" to check that what comes out of our mouth matches what information is stored in our brain about that sound.

In more simple terms, if you say it incorrectly, you have no idea you are saying it incorrectly because when you check it against the prototype in your brain, it sounds right.

It's only logical that there's a chance you will spell it how you say it - hence difficulty with spelling.

Difficulty with phonic reading is more to do with how you perceive the sound. In my experince, phonics helps a lot with speech therapy, but sadly, we often use different phonic schemes than the ones used in school - if only we could standardise it!

Just read that back and not sure it makes any sense!

seeing how hard my DS is finding his speech therapy "homework" this week... I'd say go for it ASAP. The older they are the harder it is to unlearn the mispronunciation habits he has.

This week , and next week and until he "gets it" we are working on boy saying the K sound. He simply doesn't know how to make that sound and is finding it VERY hard to learn. BUT he doesn't want to spend his whole school career calling Karl darl and Conner donna.

quietplease from experience I find it is more often children with speech problems linked to hearing that have problems with spelling because if they don't hear the sounds clearly they can't represent them whereas even if they say the sounds incorrectly they can still spell the word by listening to others (the teacher) say the word

rebeccaw I have to agree with all those who have urged you to take this seriously.

Firstly, if you refuse now, you may find yourself at the back of a very long queue when you decide it is necessary.

Secondly, evidence is that early intervention is much more effective than late intervention, and you want to nip it in the bud.

Most SALT that school children get will be NHS contracted to the LEA through a service level agreement (I believe, please correct if wrong, quietplease) so it really isn't a way to part you with cash.

I think the speech therapy is a good idea for your son. I you are worried about making it an issue for him you could see if they will let you go to some sessions without him, so that you can pass on the therapy/advice to your son, without him knowing it is speech therapy. I am going to do this for my three year old who is stammering, as I don't want to make her conscious of the problem, but would like some advice on helping her.

quietplease:
"In my experince, phonics helps a lot with speech therapy, but sadly, we often use different phonic schemes than the ones used in school - if only we could standardise it!"

Isn't that because speech therapists are using programmes which work from easy to difficult to pronounce phonemes, whereas reading programes tend to start with the phonemes which can a) be represented most simply and b) can be combined to make the most words for practice?

I know a number of synthetic phonics programme developers and I don't think that they have ever particularly factored ease of articulation into their programmes.

Hello, I work at the British Stammering Association and thought I'd write something.

As has been said, it is quite common for children to experience difficulties with their speech- around 5% of children under the age of 5 will do so. Around the age of 2-3 is when most children start to stammer, although it can develop at a later age.

In the majority of cases, they will naturally outgrow it. However, we do not advise that parents leave it to correct itself, as some of the posts above have said, as up to a quarter of children are at risk of developing chronic stammering which may persist into adulthood without intervention during the pre-school years.

Therefore, we advise anyone concerned about their child's stammer to get their child assessed by a Speech and Language Therapist as early as possible. It's never too early to act. By getting in touch with the British Stammering Association, we can give you direct contact details of your local NHS therapy service where you can refer yourself without having to go through your GP.

If you are concerned, phone our helpline (local rate) on 0845 603 2001 or email [email protected].

Stammering can affect children in lots of different ways -some will block at the start of sentences, some midway, and others at the end. Some will repeat sounds.

The exact causes of stammering are not yet fully known, but new research is suggesting that it might be genetic. There is no evidence that parents cause stammering, so don't blame yourselves.

Please see this link for parents of under 5's from our website, which gives tips on what to do in the home to support your child: www.stammering.org/under5.html

And here is a link for older children: www.stammering.org/parents_info.html

For more information about stammering in general see our website www.stammering.org.

I hope this helps
Steven
British Stammering Association

Old Thread Alert.

Although would be interesting if OP did come back & update. I also have had good experiences with DC having SLT, despite my initial reservations.

I've just come back from my Speech Therapy (voice loss due to talking too much )