speech question

[allgirls]

I am daycare provider for a little girl who just turned 5.

She has a decent vocabulary but is very hard to understand

I understand about 50% of what she says without asking her to repeat(which I hate doing and try to be gentle)

The problem is she has a very pronounced lisp. As though her tongue is very much too big for her mouth..the s is a th sound.

She also drops the ends off her words so a sentence would go like this

"ta we do to da thore to de' tho' tho'la'e" (Can we go to the store to get some chocolate)

after typing that out I realise she does the "t" for "c" and the "d" for the "g"
sound.

(We are in a very neutral sounding area so no dialect to contend with... ie: newscaster Canadian lol)

Anyway..her parents don't seem to notice anything, they probably understand her 100% but I notice it.

Do you think this is normal for this child at this age...oh..and I have seen no improvement really from age 4 to 5..maybe a bit but very little.

Will she outgrow this or does she need help?

Any thoughts?

[A Boy's Mama]

My son just had an evaluation for his speech (he "passed" meaning he didn't qualify for services and he's improved by leaps and bounds since then) and I did a ton of research on the subject. From what I understand, no, what you're describing is not normal. I would definitely approach her parents to ask about her speech (as in, is her pediatrician aware? etc) and to let them know that in your experience, her speech isn't where most kids are typically at her age.

[chann96]

The general rule I've seen is that a child should be 90% intelligible to everyone by age 4 so a child that you see on a regular basis that you still have that much trouble understanding indicates a real problem to me. I definitely think you need to bring it up to the parents (gently of course). She really sounds like she needs to help with her speech.

[LynnS6]

The rule of thumb is that a child should be 100% intelligible to familiar people by 3, and 100% intelligible (give or take a few) to strangers by 4. In addition, she's missing some relatively early sounds and doing things to words (dropping the ends of them) that might indicate a phonological disorder.

DEFINITELY bring this up to the parents. Tell them they can get free speech from the school district. This kind of thing can impact both a child's ability to learn to read (you need a good sense of the sounds of the language to read) and their ability to make friends. If other kids can't understand her, or think she talks like a baby, they won't want to play with her. That can be more devastating than the academic side effects.

[emmasmommy]

I would bring it up with the parents. Is she starting Kindergarten in the fall (seeing as she just turned 5)? If so, the school may provide a screening for the kids before they start and it might be picked up there. DD1 starts kindergarten in the fall, and we go to the school next week for a screening, where they are determining skill and development levels for all children and identifying children who may need help in certain areas. If there is such a screening, the school should provide the help for her (in Alberta anyway, I'm sure it's also the case in Ontario).

[LauraLoo]

Originally Posted by allgirls

)
The problem is she has a very pronounced lisp. As though her tongue is very much too big for her mouth..the s is a th sound.

She also drops the ends off her words so a sentence would go like this

"ta we do to da thore to de' tho' tho'la'e" (Can we go to the store to get some chocolate)

after typing that out I realise she does the "t" for "c" and the "d" for the "g"
sound.

You asked if she will outgrow this -- probably not. The first part and some of the rest sounds like "fronting" -- the child makes the sound in the front of their mouth instead of the back. It also sounds like to me that she has an oral motor issue -- the toungue, jaw and lips are weaker so she's not able to pronounce things correctly. I'm not a speech therapist, but my son is in speech therapy for exactly the same issues that I mentioned. Definitely say something to the parents - the sooner speech therapy begins the quicker the results.

Also - in the meantime if you want to do some excercises for fun, you could. Blowing bubbles, pinwheels, through straws in liquids (making volcanoes,) chewing on chewy foods, putting something sticky on the upper lip (like honey or peanut butter) and licking it off, sucking thick liquids like smoothies -- basically anything to give the entire mouth a good work out.

[A Boy's Mama]

Wow, that's great info, Laura. My son is on the slower end of the spectrum with speech and it's clear to me that he has a hard time making his mouth do what he wants it to do sometimes. I'm going to try those exercises, they sound great (and fun!).

[s_kristina]

My dd has some similar issues and what was termed a significant delay when we finally got her IEP done last week. She will be having speech classes during summer school in the month of June and then will be in speech classes when she starts kindergarten in August. I don't know how things work in Canada as we are in the US, but here we contacted the local school board for an evaluation. All of the evaluations and services are free here, but the waiting lists are crazy long. The sooner that she can get help the better. I have to wonder now if I hadn't brushed it off because the ped and np thought she was fine if her speech would be improved by now. As it is the speech pathologist she will be seeing in school thinks it's optimistic to think she will be done with speech classes at the end of kindergarten.

[NamastePlatypus]

Sounds like me at that age, I was in speech therapy for about four or five years. I still remember it all and use what I was taught and kida stuggle when I am tired or excited or nervous. ( my tongue is to big in my mouth)
Talk to her parents, after that it is up to them.

[doulatara]

When my dd was in kindergarten she had some of the same issues....although the girl you are speaking of sounds a bit worse off. DD was evaluated and has an IEP, and has been seeing a speech therapist in school twice a week since kindergarten, (she is now in 2nd grade.) She has improved leaps and bounds since then. She now pronounces her "w" correctly, with an occasional substitution of a "r" if the sound occurs in the middle of a word. She is still working on "sh" and "ch", but pronounces both sounds with 80-90%accuracy. The speech therapists think that by next year all of her sounds will be fine, and she will likely discontinue services.

It took me a long time to realize my daughter's speech was different than that of her peers. You become used to hearing your own child so sometimes it just doesn't occur to people that there is an issue. I remember volunteering in dd's kindergarten class almost weekly the whole year, and then one day I noticed that the other kids weren't talking "babytalk" like my daughter was. Unfortunately, the school didn't bring it up until I noticed an issue and asked for an evaluation.

So, to answer your question, if I were you I would probably suggest that the mother take her to get evaluated. It doesn't sound like something she will just outgrow if it's ignored. She is getting to the age where kids, and well meaning adults who think it's "cute" will start to point out her mispronunciations, and she will become self conscious.

[bobica]

she sounds like she has problems with articulation. i would recommend to the parent that she get evaluated. if she starts school in september and still sounds like that, school should recommend services be investigated.

check this link for a guideline of sound development by age.