My one twin is extremely advanced in speech. He's been tested over a 5 year old level & that was just after turning 3. He can say pretty much anything. My other twin is not so advanced & is still struggling in some areas. I know we're not supposed to compare, but it's so hard when I only have the 2 of them chattering at me all day! So, while I know one is advanced, I'm not quite sure where the other one is. We had him evaluated through the school district briefly at a Child Development Day thing when he was 3 & she told us to focus on his "S-blends" (ie a word starting with s, like s-nake, s-chool, s-illy, etc). He can say "S" but has a LOT of trouble with words starting with "S" (he typically omits the "S" sound, so 'lide' for 'slide' or 'moke' for 'smoke', etc). He has an even harder time when the word starts with an S & goes into a vowel, like "silly" or "sad". He adds a sound, almost, like "SSSS-dad" for sad, but that's only when we reinforce the "S" sound at the beginning (otherwise it's just 'dad' for sad). The therapist 6 months ago felt he would be just fine because he COULD say "S", so we've just been reinforcing the "S" sound & correcting him when he omits it. But it's been 6 months & he hasn't improved. He also has a lot of trouble with F & V, but I've found lots of information on those sounds on the internet. I'm confident I can help him with those, but I can't find much of anything on s-blends. Do any of you have any tips or any good websites? I'm thinking that if I can't get him more consistent within the next month, I plan to have him re-evaluated professionally. I'd rather have a speech therapist tell me I'm paranoid than let him fall further behind (he also has some texture/chewing issues, so I'm wondering if they correlate). I'm hoping we won't have to go the ST route, but I would like to work on this stuff at home first, if I can. Thanks in advance for any help!
I can't help you...my boys don't say a lot of the beginning sounds themselves... "yike" instead of "like." Same as yours. I do remember when the boys had ST when they were 2, she gave me a worksheet of the ages when boys vs girls master the sounds. I searched the internet, and this is what I found: Sounds I hope that helps a little bit. I personally think it's something they will get over time. And having twins, just makes it difficult to not compare the two. OT, but I hope you had an awesome vacation!
At 3, s is not something that is even close to being mastered by many kids and especially blends. I'm surprised that at 3, that is what they had you working on with him. At 3, the sounds that should be produced clearly are m, w, p, b, h and vowels for the most part. At 4, sounds like t, k, g should be clear. Most SLP's don't even start working on s sounds until 2nd grade or so depending on the kid. That said, if you really want to work on the sound, try putting sucker where his tongue and behind his teeth meet so that he can feel where the tongue is suppose to go. Make games out of it and don't pressure him at all. Maybe make a memory game or matching game with a lot of those sounds. Model it and then have him try. Pick books that have a lot of those sounds. You can look in the mirror at eachother to show how your mouth looks when you make the sound. What you don't want is to cause him to be self conscious about his speech and how he sounds, so by making it fun and not doing "drill work" or bringing alot of attention to it he'll respond better.
We dont flag kids (preschool-ages 3) for articulation/pronunciation often. Speech that is understood 75% of the time is OK (so 25% may be undetermined sounds)- though if there is extreme frustration we may ask for a consult. Short periods of stuttering is also common due the large growth of language skills between age 2- 5. Most preschoolers we seeOften, a lot of it clears up by age 5. Usually for our kids that do get speech therapy between 3 and 5 it is more for language ( not enough age appropriate vocabulary, shorter than average for age sentences, inability to label or identify items, low/no language output, language not used for communication purposes, not able to answer/understand age appropriate questions). FWIW- I work at a preschool with 3-5 yr olds right now. Out of the twelve 3 to young 4 yr olds I work with- none currently qualify for have speech therapy. About 4 have articulation/pronunciation difficulties in their speech ( v, f, th, y, l, etc) and most of them have some developmentally appropriate language errors (misused pronouns, verb tenses, lack of plurals). Only one is even being considered to be evaluated for speech and it is for language. In the older 4- 5 yr old preschool class out of 50- about 4 qualify for speech therapy. 3 for language and 1 for articulation/pronunciation. So although 25% of 3-young 4 yr old show noticable speech differences, byt he next year less than 10% qualify for speech services and only one is due to articulation/pronunciation instead of language. In our area kids are screened in Kindergarten for speech. Often our SLP will gain a handful of kids on her caseload that qualify- many of them are for language development. She does pick up some kids around 2/3rd grade for lisp, stutter, and missing speech sounds- but a lot of kids that had sound errors in preschool resolve on their own.
First... it's totally normal and natural for a 3.5 year old not to be able to pronounce the letter S, or it's blends with other letters. That isn't a letter that is even supposed to be clear until age 5 or 6. It's the one letter my girls can't say. They're both very advanced in speech as well, and speak more clearly and have better sentence structure than the 5 year olds in their pre-school class. But neither of my girls can say "s". It either comes out like "ch" or "sh". I became good friends with the head of speech therapy at the hospital my girls were born at, and she comes over to visit frequently. I've asked her time and time again if I should worry - or if there's anything I can do to speed that "s" sound along and she continues to tell me not to even work on it. She says just to model the right sound, and repeat the word if my kids notice and worry that their word didn't sound right. But nothing else. So, my advice... don't worry! And don't make it a big deal for your son. He'll get that sound eventually. It's hard when one twin is seriously advanced, or when our kids are advanced in other areas because then we really notice when other areas are slower. But it sounds like your son is right on track, or even ahead of schedule if the only sounds he's still working on are F, V and S.
Thank you all for your replies. I knew we had some SLPs on here, or those who work closely with them. I work hand in hand with SLPs, but for adults so they don't always have all the answers I have for my kids . A friend of ours is a SLP that used to work Birth-3 & she's the one that mentioned I get him evaluated. She said she doubted he'd qualify, but it couldn't hurt. When he was evaluated in August (at 3), he was quite ahead, with the exception of some of his enunciation. It's just so hard when one is SO understandable & the other is only so-so. I think people notice it even more because of how far ahead my other one is. As of now, it doesn't seem to bother him & he doesn't seem phased when we correct him. He even got a special present from Santa for working on his "s" words . After chatting with him for a while yesterday, I'm relieved to hear that he's using the "f" sound appropriately in some words (ie Four, Finger) & uses the "v" sound within words (ie eVerything), just a bit harder to START the word with it (ie Very). I'll keep an eye on him & bring it up at his 4 year appointment this summer if I'm still concerned. I'll try not to "drill" it too much to make him self conscious of it. At least I find myself translating for him or telling him I don't know what he's saying less & less, so I guess he's improving slightly. So thank you all again. It's always nice hearing reassuring words from others & being told not to worry! I much prefer that route ! (OT Meg, our trip was WONDERFUL! Much better than the blizzard we're experiencing now!)
