How clear is your nearly 3 year olds speech???

[tylerdylan]

DS2 will be 3 in 3 months. He is a very bright boy and has a lot of words, but he tends to slur them all together when he talks and there are certain sounds he seems unable to say ie "k", "ck" "s". For example duck would 'dutt', spiderman is 'piderman'. He is very hard to understand at times and we often say to him "sweetie I can't understand what you are saying" and then he repeats it over and over again and gets frustrated at us as we guess at what he's saying and repeatedly get it wrong.
DS1 was pronouncing everything perfect from the start and was a very early talker. So, now we aren't sure if DS2 is just "normal" or truly behind, because all we have to compare him to is his exceptional older brother.
Should an almost 3 year old be pronouncing words perfectly by now or should we not be concerned??

TIA

[PatchChild]

Don't stress at all. Certain sounds come WAY later than others. The hard /k/ sounds is one of the later ones. As is /r/ and /th/. Kids are still developmentally on track if they don't have all those sounds by kindergarten.

[dioramamama]

My 4.5 year old still can't say "s" -- she's getting closer, but she's not quite there. Our doctor and a speech pathologist friend both say that "s" is very commonly one of the last sounds kids learn to make. Obviously there are exceptions, like your first child, but I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[~cassie~]

Normal. Those sounds come way later. Most people can't understand my nearly 3 yr old, but that is more to his dealys. Strangely enough, he has an "s" and an "r" sound but no "b" or "d" sound. Kids are all different, even in the same family.

[greenbeanmama]

Our three-year-old is pretty clear most of the time, but he doesn't say the "s" at the beginning of words with another consonant (star is "tar", but sand is "sand"). I know he can say it, as I've worked with him ("Put your "s" in there, sweetie"). His "th" still comes out "y" -(Mama, can I have "yis" one or "yat" one?), but he's very understandable - his problem is the run-on sentences and talking so fast that people can't follow! I've worked more on manners and complete sentences than pronunciation because I figure it'll come with time. My husband keeps trying on the "th" sound though. I keep telling him he'll miss it when it's gone.

[sapphire_chan]

http://www.talkingchild.com/speechchart.aspx And note that where the sound is in a word can affect how well it's articulated.

http://www.talkingchild.com/chartintel.aspx a 3 year old should be 80% comprehensible to his own parents. A bit of a childish lisp is definitely normal.

Oh, and don't worry if your DS1 imitates DS2 as long as he isn't teasing. Mirroring a younger child's speech can be a way of connecting better verbally, sort of akin to speaking more slowly to someone from the deep south and super fast to someone from NJ. (Er, to people who speak in the typical manner of those areas, obviously.)

[serenbat]

I would just have a painless evaluation instead of waiting two years and finding out then your child needs some help.

it may be nothing or it could be something that you could help your child with now

[tabrizia]

At 3 months before 3, we were seriously considering a speech evaluation for DS, his articulation was behind a lot. At 1 month before 3 we were still considering it, but his speech had started to improve and become a ton clearer. At his 3 year old appointment we got the information, but his speech had improved so much that the doctor didn't think he had much of a problem when she was talking to him and we decided to wait to call till the end of May if he still was having problems. In the last week he has started talking even more and become even clearer and I don't think he really needs the evaluation anymore. Something just clicked for him one day and his speech went from about 30% understandable to others, 50 to 60% to us, to 75% understandable to others and about 90% understandable to us.

That being said, if you are concerned, it never hurts to have an evaluation. We were planning on it, he just improved before we got to it.

[curvyred]

Our DS just turned 3 and at 2 was quite behind verbally (no 2-word sentences, etc.) He caught up a TON by the time we got him in for an evaluation (a few months ago) and thought we were probably being silly. We had to count his words in a day and he had something like 300+ different words, some of which are way beyond his age level. HOWEVER, he tested pretty far behind on intelligibility and, as a result, behind on some other evaluation areas because they couldn't understand him. He does a lot of the things you mentioned and almost all of his words start with D or vowels. We can understand him 70-80 % of the time, but for other people, it's maybe 30%.

We started him in speech therapy based on the evaluations. If nothing else, it has given us a TON of tools to use with him and helped us figure out how to help versus hinder his progress. If you have access to an evaluation, you may check it out.

[Hayeser]

sounds quite normal to me. my 3yo has a hard time with Ls. instead of "leaves" it's "weaves"

[Llyra]

My kiddos have been three for a few months now, and they're still difficult to understand at times. I can understand most of what they say, but they get mad as heck when I can't. And they still use kiddie pronunciations for lots of words-- "mook" for milk, for instance, or "beggies" for veggies, and the funniest thing in the world is hearing DS trying to say guacamole. Even my five year old occasionally drops sounds or mispronounces words. If I can't understand, I try to ask questions that will help me zero in on what they mean-- like, "can you show me where it is?" Then I say it back to them clearly, "Oh, you want the crocodile. The crocodile. I understand now." Stuff like that.

It can't hurt to get an eval if you're really worried, but I think it sounds fine. Does he see a health care provider you trust? You might ask that person to talk to him a bit, and offer an opinion.

[mamadelbosque]

Sounds normal to me too. DS1 had zero words till 20-22 months, exploded around 24 months, and was in full sentences by 28 months. He's 37 nearly 38 months now and inteligble (though maybe not accurate pronunciation) probably 95% of the time... though occasionally, he'll say something and even *I* won't know wtf he's talking about (though, less and less as time goes on )

[twinergy]

My 2.5 year old boy is seeing a speech therapist. He is also difficult to understand so one of the things she is having me work on with him is increasing eye contact. He doesn't look at people when they talk to him so he isn't seeing how the sounds are made. We are incorporating eye contact into play, and I am also asking him to look at me when I am talking to him. This is a new thing to us so I can't say it has improved his speech yet, but I am hopeful.

[spmamma]

Originally Posted by tylerdylan

DS2 will be 3 in 3 months. He is a very bright boy and has a lot of words, but he tends to slur them all together when he talks and there are certain sounds he seems unable to say ie "k", "ck" "s". For example duck would 'dutt', spiderman is 'piderman'. He is very hard to understand at times and we often say to him "sweetie I can't understand what you are saying" and then he repeats it over and over again and gets frustrated at us as we guess at what he's saying and repeatedly get it wrong.
DS1 was pronouncing everything perfect from the start and was a very early talker. So, now we aren't sure if DS2 is just "normal" or truly behind, because all we have to compare him to is his exceptional older brother.
Should an almost 3 year old be pronouncing words perfectly by now or should we not be concerned??

TIA

Sounds just like my DD. She was a late talker. She'll be 3 in June and there are still many times that I can't understand what she's saying. There are just some sounds that she can't make yet.