Pronunciation in Autistic 4 year old

[cyberseraphim]

Sainsburys is Saindains
Boots is Doots

Strawberries are Stwasees
Apple Juice is Affel Juth
Coffee is Coddee - not for him!

and so on.

In some ways, my NT 20 month old is much the same but he will just get better over time. Does anyone have experience of bad pronunciation getting better in an autistic child? He doesn't seem to hear any difference in what we say compared to what he says

Many autistic kids have a lot of trouble hearing consonants correctly so pronouncing them really can be a challenge. DS1's (4 1/2) speech has become so much clearer and less confused since he learnt phonics (usung the BBC's Words and Pictures fun with Phonics that's sometimes on CBeebies) and taught himself to read, since he spent lots of time repeating letters as they actually sound under his own motivation. I don't think it's any coincidence that I have a friend whose son is about 3 1/2 and he is receiving therapy through a program in Kansas which has included working on phonics, since he already had the letter recognition and could make some sounds and it's really helping him to say some clear words.

Ds speech was like this when it started at around 4- and many of those early words are still jumbled. They have the correct 'melody' but the wrong rhythm and order of sounds IYKWIM. We have used clapping to clap out the number of sylables - to help him notice the missed ones, (ds clearly has trouble hearing sylables as well as vowel and consonant sounds). Its as if his hearing is not tuned in correctly. His speech has improved no end recently (age 8). I feel some sympathy as I struggle to copy sounds in a foreign language!!

DS2 finds consonant blends really hard - especially those with 's' in. So 'sweet' began as 'weet' and has progressed to 'ser-weet'. He sometimes reverses sounds, so 'this one' comes out as 'wunthis'. 'Crisps' was 'christmas' for ages and is now 'crimas'. He will imitate most words and sounds now, but if I give him one starting with an 's' he finds it very hard - so 'smile' is 'mile'.

Thanks - someone who is working with DS1 also said it might be a phonics problem so I'll see if he is interested in the Phonics videos. He is saying a lot more phrases and sentences so it's probably not worth worrying too much as long as he keeps talking !!!

videos.... ? meant DVDS !

cyberseraphim, the alphabet on poisson rouge seems to have helped my ds with letters, it is great for words and vocabulary, not sure if you have seen it already.

I'll just add Starfall.com, too. It's american, but the videos and animations are really cute. When DS1 was going through his big Starfall phase at Easter, DS2 (now 2.2 and still non-verbal) was watching the videos and shouting "ah! ah!" as if he was sounding out the letters