Lazy Speech in a four year old - I'm not talking about "ain't" and "wa'er"

[colditz]

For "Look at this" he will say "'ook at hiss!"

If I pull him up on it - he will make a half hearted effort to correct himself, but really doesn't have the patience .. he will say "Viss" for "This" ... and he IS capable that articulating the "Th" sound.

His whole method of speech is, and always has been, slurry and indistinct. His speech didn't develop normally or until very late. He has had speech therapy to 'find' all his sounds, but although he now is capable of making them all, he doesn't use them in conversation, especially not if very excited (which is normally)

How can I get him to clarify his speech? I don't want to be on his back all the time, but on the other hand it is laziness, not an inability, and he is very difficult to understand sometimes. (and he doesn't care)

Is it laziness or could it be that he only pronounces the words correctly when he is thinking & giving the words some consideration.

DS2 can get most sounds correct when broken down & is even pretty good at complete words when asked to repeat them back but when he has something to say he is thinking about expressing his needs rather than how it sounds to the listener.

I do try & reinforce how the word should be said but for ds2 it is a balance between teaching him correcting him & giving him more time.

Thanks PipinJo - he's got no more SALT until september.

Mymatemax, yes, I think it is a time thing - I just wondered how much i should be correcting - because modelling has never worked. His speech only improved when I started to correct it.

some sort of incentive/star chart leading to nice modest reward, to encourage him to try harder with his pronunciation?

bump

Has he been seen my an Occupational Therapist? This sounds exactly like my DS who is 3.5 and he is on the waiting list and is also seeing a SALT. I'd be really interested to know. is your DS also quite boisterous?

Ooh you could be talking about DD! She won't have her SALT assessment for another few months ( but whole other story), but it is the same thing - she knows the sounds, she CAN say them, and yet it is "duh" rather than "the" etc. It isn't like wa'er, it is unclear sounds.

I am in the same thing of not wanting to hassle all the time etc - we decided to try and tackle it more last weekend, but by the end of Saturday she just looked all at talking.