When should I worry?

[MotherWillow]

DS is 3 1/2. He will be starting pre-school in the fall.

He started talking right at age 2. He didn't really say much more than one or two word phrases for a long time. Sometime around 2 1/2 to 3 he really just took off and started talking up a storm.

Our pedi has evaluated his speech in terms of how much he can say etc and says he is fine developmentally.

However, he still has major issues with pronunciation of many words.

It is as if he cannot pronounce P sounds, th sounds, f sounds, or ll sounds.

For example:

waffles= waccles
mouth= moud
balloon= bawoon
apple= abble
pizza= pizzie
there= dere
butter= budder
belly= bewwy

You get the idea. I don't know if I should be concerned about his mispronunciations or not?

What do you think?

Thanks!

[a(TM)?Star]

I gonna watch this thread........my son started talking the same way at the same time, and has some major impediments, but I'm guessing he's going to catch up, some letters are just really hard for them to pronounce.

[emaye_to_2]

This sounds exactly like my son. When he started preschool the teachers had a difficult time understanding him. Finally, a month before he turned four, we had his speech evaluated by a professional.. and his articulation (understandability, pronunciation) was well-below average.

So.. we started private speech therapy. And guess what, 10 months later, this past Monday, he just graduated!

They re-evaluated his speech and he is now above-average. I feel so good about deciding to pursue this and how successful it was for him.

Now he can go into Kindergarten with confidence that the teacher, and most importantly his peers, will understand him.

I would definitely recommend speech therapy, and this is a good year to work on it. There is also free speech therapy through your state's Early Intervention program too. Good luck to you both!

[mama k nj]

I'd say contact your local school system. They should be able to screen him for free for the preschool/headstart program.

Oh and trust your mommy gut no matter what the Drs say.

[lcstrite]

I have a chart indicating when children usually can produce different sounds.
The 2nd column gives the age when 50% of children can make the sound, the 3rd column is the age when 90% of children can make the sound.

50%90%
b1.53
h1.53
m1.53
n1.53
p1.53
w1.53
d24
g24
k24
t24
ng24
f2.54
y2.54
l36
s36
r37
ch3.57
sh3.57
z3.58
j47
v48
th4.57
zh5.58

So, there are definitely several there that would be considered very normal for your 3.5 y.o. to have trouble with.

Lisa

[heatherweh]

I just had to post and say that is SO CUTE- sorry to put that out of context since you're actually worried about it, but the way he's saying those words sounds just adorable. make sure and get him on tape before he corrects them all.

Sorry not to have good advice, DS is 20 months and has just started working with a speech therapist because he is barely talking at all (maybe 3 words and 3 signs or so).

[LynnS6]

None of the sounds that he's having trouble with are 'early' (except for 'p' -- but the 'p' might be affected by other sounds), so I wouldn't be too concerned.

Here are some good web pages that might help too:
http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/Table4.htm
http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/Table2.htm
http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/Table3.htm

He's definitely not 'early' on any of these milestones, but as long as he's improving over time, he's continuing to acquire new sounds, I wouldn't worry.

[Purplehaze]

well...

Here in CT we have "birth to 3" who would test up till age three. Once they are three the schools do the testing and would provide the services if they need speach. My middle son went to preschool for free, at the public school because of evere speach delay. Sooo if you are worried, contact the school and askk then if they do testing for speach delay. this should be done at no cost to you.