Concerned with DD's speech

My youngest DD is just now starting to talk and put words together. She has been saying the typical words (mama, dada, etc) for awhile now, but never put two words together. She is also getting into more complex words. However, she leaves half of the word off. This morning when I got her up, she asked "dada ho?". Meaning "is daddy home'". When I said no, she asked "dada wo?". Meaning "is daddy at work". She does that with a lot of words.

She also has to think really hard when saying more than one word at a time. She will often pause to get it right and still get confused on syllables.

Lastly, she is saying her s's with a lisp.

They don't go for their 2 year check up until the end of January and I wasn't sure if this warranted a call to the pedi or if I should wait until Jan to see if her speech gets better.

Any info is appreciated.

 

My totally non-expert opinion is that she sounds to be doing just fine. There may be an articulation issue but I think it's too early to be concerned about it. That said, as the beneficiary of 1.5 years of EI speech therapy for one of my two, I'm ALL in favor of getting an evaluation and going with your gut instinct on it. And you can get the services more power to you!!

 

It sounds to me like she is doing great! Mine just turned 2 and Sarah finally started saying two-word combos (including exactly what you said -- "Dada wo?" and "Dada ho!") and I am soooo relieved. I do still hope to work on her articulation a little, but I had her evaluated and the therapist said that starting to combine words is a huge step and usually means the child is on the right track.

As far as the lisping, some kids do that well into the preschool years -- the same for mixing up consonants. In fact, with Amy, who is my better talker, mixing up consonants seems to be a sign of progress. As she starts to say more complicated things, she mixes them up more often.

 

It sounds to me like she's doing just fine, I would not worry.

 

I agree; not an expert, but she seems fine. I think LOTS of kids have a little lisp until they're 3 or 4; my DD did and she has no speech problem, believe me! She also had a southern accent for about a year between 2 and 3 -- now that was funny!! :lol:

 

Sounds normal!

As for the lisp, I teach kindergarten and most of my kids that have had lisps do not even qualify at that age. You've lots of time still!

 

Also not an expert here, but I think for her age she's probably fine. My son, however, was doing that at 2.5 years old and they called it "final consonant deletion", b/c he would leave the ends off of words that ended in consonants. For instance he would say "baby" or "daddy" just fine, but truck was "truh" and hug was "hu". For him it just took him a little longer than the average kid to get the full word out. I'm betting your daughter will get the hang of it way before he did! The fact that she's speaking in 3 word phrases right now is great!

 

I read this yesterday and thought that everything was fine, but was worried about adding my non-expert opinion. Nolan was not talking as much as Meghan until after they turned two.....now he doesn't stop!

QUOTE(Overachiever @ Nov 29 2007, 12:27 PM) [snapback]513767[/snapback]
I agree; not an expert, but she seems fine. I think LOTS of kids have a little lisp until they're 3 or 4; my DD did and she has no speech problem, believe me! She also had a southern accent for about a year between 2 and 3 -- now that was funny!! :lol:


This cracked me up. My son pronounces his R's.....I have no idea where that came from!

 

I'm in agreement. She'll be fine for at least the next 1.5 months. I'd bring it up at the next pedi appointment if it is still bothering you.

BTW, Sierra still pronounces her "R" sounds like she's from Boston and the pedi and development assessment person both said that's just fine as long as we can understand her. We just work on it because it makes sounding out words a little more difficult for her when the "R" sound isn't the way the rest of us say it.