My 4yo has been having problems pronouncing word/letter sounds since he has begun talking. I always thought he would just out grow it, but he hasn't yet. I took him to the Dr today for an ear infection, and after asking my son how old he was (he says "bore") he had him say a few other words. He showed him how to say it and he repeated it correctly after awhile (like he always does). He said to keep working with him on pronouncing, and if it doesn't get better we'll then test his hearing and then Auditory Processing Disorder. My question is: Does anyone have any speech therapy ideas that i can do at home? I've been looking on google for awhile, but i can't find anything! I'll continue looking, but i thought maybe someone here had to do the same thing, and may have some ideas He has problems with s (nake instead of snake), f (b in place of the f), cr, dr, br, L, C, ph, G, K, V, Qu, R, and sl. I've been looking at Super Star Speech books on Amazon...has anyone ever used those? Thanks. Catrina
It sounds like he's a perfectly normal 4 year old to me. If he CAN say it correctly (as demonstrated at the doctor's office), then there isn't anything wrong with him. He just needs to know that he's saying it wrong. If a child spends roughly 3 years saying a word "wrong," he's not going to magically starting saying it "right". You have to work with him, gently correct him, and reward his accomplishments. I did take one of my sons to speech therapy for a couple of months. The pediatrician said he didn't know enough words by the time he was 1. Yep... 1. So I took him. The therapist did exactly the sort of things we did naturally at home: repeating the word for objects, over enunciating words, being direct about naming anything he touched, etc. It was a complete waste of time.
If your child is capable of making the speech sounds, then you might do the kinds of worksheets my daughter did. She'd have a couple of pages of words [with pictures] that started or ended with certain sounds. She'd have to say each word correctly 10 times each every day. It really did help. For example, she'd have a row that had a picture of a rose, rainbow, and ring. I'd say the word and then she'd have to repeat it 10x correctly. Her therapists used the same idea but for game play. She had to say the word correctly 3x before she could roll the dice to go. Here's a speech therapy game site as well: http://www.quia.com/shared/speech_therapy/ Plus, there's a CD called Speechercise that will help with sounds. You can purchase it on amazon.com, but they also have a website.
My favorite was Scissors, Glue, and Artic Too. It is published by linguisystems. You can google it (they would not let me post the website). They also have other good books. You can also probably find them cheaper elsewhere. Depending on where you live, you might be able to get free speech therapy through the public school. My dd with auditory processing disorder had six years of therapy at the local elementary school in VA even though she never attended school. In PA we are no so fortunate. We had to use our insurance, but we found a program at a nearby university that has masters students provide the therapy under supervision. Our insurance would not pay for it as the university is out of state (we live on the border) so they wrote off the cost. We had many years of free therapy for our two boys. If he has not outgrown it by the age of four, I doubt he will without some form of intervention. That is not to say you cannot do the intervention yourself. I would just caution you to be vigilant and not wait too long to get outside help if you don't see improvement.
No need to buy anything. Assuming he can imitate the correct sound I would practice k/g (they go together - improve one and the other improves) by having your child repeat these words for a few minutes every day. http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/tx-/k-SIWI-R.pdf and http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/tx-/k-SFWF-R.pdf Once that gets easy I would have him repeat short phrases with those words and then sentences. Then start reminding him in his conversational speech. For f/v (they also go together) I would use http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/tx-/f-SIWI-R.pdf and http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/tx-/f-SFWF.pdf. I would ignore the /r/ mispronunciation for now. I would work on the /l/ after the k/g and f/v are pronounced correctly. For consonant blends if he is consistently dropping one sound I would work on those now. (look under cluster reduction on this site http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/txresources.html) If he mostly substitutes a sound like swide for slide I would wait to work on them. Former SLP
I used to tutor a little guy, and help with his "homework" from speech therapy. His parents could only afford to go every other week. One great idea was playing bingo together. She had sheets made with pictures on them. If there is trouble with sounds at the beginning of the word, work on only one sound per sitting. Put many different pictures on your bingo cards, and each take turns picking a picture from a bucket, say the word, and find it on your card. While playing the game your turn models correct pronunciation, the child's turn practices it. You also need to find out what is age appropriate. Like S and L, are often late developing sounds, so don't work on them until the others are doing better. Hope that gives you another idea to work with.
Faythe had some problems, too. I took her to be tested when she was kindergarten age; they said she has minor speech problem that would probably correct itself. They gave me stuff for her; I'll look to see if I still have it. They also tested her language (as compared to speech). I tried to tell them that she was FINE with language, but of course they had to test it all. They asked when she did this and that; I couldn't remember exactly, but told them it was well with in "normal limits". I sat in one room, watching through a one-way mirror as the gal worked with Faythe. She was distractable, but still responded quickly and accurately. When they met with me later, the woman's eyes were big and she said, "Your daughter has EXCELLENT language!!!" LOL, I could have told her that!!! (And actually, I HAD, lol!)
My youngest daughter had speech problems. I went to the pedi over and over from age 2 1/2 to 4 because I felt she had a hearing problem. The pedi did nothing since he did not see fluid behind the eardrum nor ever had an ear infection. Well, I thought, ok then she must have a speech issue and got her into a speech therapy program at the local school. She participated for about a month and the teacher said she thought it wasn't a speech problem at all but a hearing problem and told me to demand that her hearing be tested at the Doctors. Long stoy short is she was tested and found to have fluid sitting in the eustation tubes of both ears and she could not hear. Got her tubes and she made GREAT improvement immediately. Once she was a little older she told me that she couldn't hear right and couldn't hear music to sing and dance until she got her tubes. (As a side note, every child, even though under schoolage or homeschooled, is eligible for speech therapy at no charge from the local school district, should you decide your child needs it). So yeah, if your child has numerous ear infections, or even if he doesn't, fluid could be sitting in there inhibiting the ear to hear properly.
I tend to agree with Actressdancer. When our ds was 2.5 he didn't talk much, and after a LOT of family pressure, we took him in for an eval. My ds is NOT a trained monkey, and pretty much refused to cooperate. We left with a recommendation for speech therapy AND physical therapy. The physical therapy was ridiculous- his gross motor skills were great. We opted for the 'wait and see' approach. At 4, ds was eval'd by his preschool with all the rest of the kids (just an ordinary one for all 4yos). I was complimented on his terrific vocabulary Some kids just take a bit longer than others. (at 6, my dd didn't like to say the 'th' sound. She'd finally started saying it consistantly when she lost her 2 front teeth...)
I agree with Amie. Many 4yr olds have at least a few sounds that don't come out right. I think as parents, we get so used to hearing it from them, we don't notice it, so we don't correct it. My ds was nearly 6 before I noticed he didn't say his k/c sound. And I didn't even notice it till he started learning how to spell and he kept spelling "kite" t-i-t-e and "cake" t-a-k-e. He honestly thought that's what the word was. I can't believe I never noticed. Once he understood, he self corrected and hasn't had a single problem. Except for an oblivious mom:roll:
