Conference moira::parenting_v3

    27-month-old James doesn't do so hot with "L" sounds.  "Balloon"
    comes out "bah-yoon" and "stroller" is "stroh-yer."  Many little
    kids have a hard time with certain sounds.  I don't think this means
    she's going to lisp later in life.  If her overall speech is good,
    she's progressing steadily, she can make herself understood both
    inside and outside of the family, etc., I'd try to relax.  If at
    age 3.5 or so, she's still lisping, it might be time to see a
    specialist.  But a lot of little kids mangle the language and still
    end up talking fine by the time they're in first grade.  

    Another thing to think about is that as 2nd teeth come in the entire
    shape of the mouth and the way letters are made changes.  There are a
    whole set of sounds which are very difficult to make because of the
    muscle usage in the tongue.  (How long as it been since you thought
    about making a sound???)
    

    I don't think you have to worry, either.  I've known many children
    who sound just like your daughter and all have turned out just
    fine.  Keep in mind that English is probably one of the most
    difficult languages in the world to speak.  I've noticed that
    that my daughter (only 8 months) instinctively produces French-
    sounding syllables and even words because that language is a
    little more "natural" than English.
    
    Just as an aside - this topic reminds me of the little boy next door.
    He's a little over 3 and what a talker!  Only trouble is, I can't
    make out half of what he's saying until I've been around him for a
    while so I can "tune in".  When he comes over to visit us, he's
    constantly saying "What's nat?" or "What's nis?" or "Kaffrin, can I
    have front pooch?"  It took my step-son to decipher that one...
    Front Pooch = Fruit Punch.
    
    - Kathryn
    

    I have quite verbal, talkative kids, but even at age 4 Eric often says
    words I don't understand.  As it's obvious to him that the fault is
    mine, he just repeats them with the same pronunciation; sometimes I
    must call in Aaron (8) to interpret.  By 8, on the other hand, Aaron's
    pronunciation is usually quite good, except for words he has acquired
    from reading, and never heard spoken, which sometimes come out weird.
    
    If the "problem" seems gradually to improve, it's probably completely
    normal.  If you remain worried, talk to your doctor, or get screening
    from specialists that your school system will provide.  Nursury school
    and pre-school teachers typically do this on an informal basis, too.
    
    		- Bruce

    
    My daughter was also a late talker. She had lots of problems with
    L, TR, DR, TH, R, etc. She also talked too fast. There was steady,
    but slow progress. Now, almost five, she talks just like any other
    kid her age. I learnt from a kindergarten teacher that it really takes
    a lot of muscle coordination to pronounce words properly. Some kids
    take longer to mature. I was told to wait until kindergarten to have
    her speech tested. I was also told not to make a big deal about it
    since it may discourage her from trying. 
    
    Eva. 

    This note hit a cord with me.  Katie has developed very slowly
    verbally.  At her 2.5 check up the doctor said to wait until she was 3
    until deciding the proper approach to take.  At that time she was
    hardly talking (mostly whining, which she still does).  Now she really
    is trying, but it seems she has a problem with pronouncing her
    syllables.  The director at her daycare would like to sign her up for
    the "Early Prevention Program".  Has anyone been involved in this
    program?  I believe it's based out of UMASS Medical in Worcester.  Also 
    if anyone has had past experience they would like to share that would
    be great.  So far the way we treat it is... If she pronounces a word
    incorrectly we just repeat it correctly. (We don't say "that's wrong" we
    just repeat it)  If she can't say the word and expresses that she can't
    we say the word broken down by syllables.
    
    Thanks
    Karen
    

    Karen -
    
    I have no expertise in this area, but do know a couple of speech
    therapists as neighbors, either at the pre-school level or early
    elementary, though I don't know about the "Early Intervention Program."
    I suggest learning more about it from the pre-school, as well as about
    alternatives that may be available.  The cost might well be picked up
    by your school system, and they must also make additional screening and
    counseling available to you.  Then check again with your doctor.  There
    are some kids who certainly benefit with speech therapy at this age
    level, but it's hard for an untrained parent to judge; and it isn't a
    now-or-never situation.  It's hard to imagine it being harmful, as long
    as it isn't too much hassle for you.
    
    Can we assume that you've had Katie's hearing checked thoroughly?
    
    		- Bruce

    Bruce,
    
    At the 2.5 check-up with her pediatrician, I asked about the
    possibility of it being a hearing disorder.  He at that time felt we
    should wait until 3.  She hears us very well, if we ask her something
    (ie., please go get something) she always does what is expected. Unless
    she would rather not, she's got a mind of her own.  So I suppose if it
    were a hearing problem it would be more in light to the way words are
    being passed through. 
    
    Thanks very much, I'll ask the pediatrician about having the hearing
    checked.  
    
    Karen
    

For several years, our eldest, Jennifer, could not distinguish L, R, and W.
She could hear them in others, but not in her own.  So, at 6 she had a
hearing test ... all normal ... at 7 she had a couple weeks of therapy
and found that she was starting to discriminate and now at 8 you wouldn't
know there had been a problem.

Basically, you have to wait until they start to hear the difference when
they say things themselves ... unless it is a major problem, but one or
two sounds that young, I wouldn't worry about.

Our middle daughter, Hilary, although we're in Canada, you'd swear was being 
brought up near Boston ... she believes in the law of the conservation of 'r's.
So we go for rides in the 'cah', and if we try to get her to correct it
we then go for rides in the 'cow' for a while.  Basically she cannot hear
it just yet .. but at 5 we're not too worried.

Our youngest, Rowena, at two is far clearer than either of the other two
were at that age.  It'll change, I'm sure!  :-)


Stuart

    Aaron's pre-school did hearing screening in every class (down to 18
    months), using "impedence testing," which is purely physiological, and
    doesn't require understanding or response from the kids.  But it _can_
    be fouled up by a mild cold, which happened to us.
    
    My (excellent) pediatrician was quite down on such routine screening,
    since even when not a "false alarm" (which it usually is), it would
    almost never lead to useful treatment in a child who hasn't already
    displayed developmental abnormalities.  That is, you're not going to
    perform major auditory surgery on a child with normal development of
    speech and behavior.  On the other hand, if behavior is unusual,
    diagnostic (and possibly corrective) steps make much more sense.
    
    The fact that she responds to you does not rule out hearing loss.  For
    example, she might have loss at frequencies that impair
    deciphering words, even though she knows you are talking to her, and
    can guess what you want.  Equally plausible to me is your idea of
    jumbled processing of auditory signals after they are detected, the
    auditory equivalent of the visual scrambling that causes learning
    disabilities in kids (people) with strephosymbolia (sp?), a.k.a.
    dyslexia.
    
    If your pediatrician doesn't want to look into this, and you are still
    worried, you should probably seek a second opinion, if only for your
    own peace of mind.
    
    		- Bruce

    I don't know about the particular Early Intervention Program
    mentioned in .8, but I know of others -- my son's best friend
    Caroline was  in one of them for a time.  
    
    The idea is that some speech problems, if corrected early, never
    become problems, but if they aren't corrected before the child
    starts to interact with other children, they can interfere with
    learning to the point where they permanently damage the child's
    self esteem and confidence.  The program tries to distinguish
    between normal pronunciation difficulties that all children go
    through as they gain control of their facial muscles and those
    that are real problems.  
    
    Caroline's problems stemmed from undiagnosed ear infections.  She
    had never been a robust child, but she'd never been sickly,
    either, just sort of quiet, though intelligent and active enough. 
    And she understood well enough when she was spoken to.  
    
    But someone at her preschool picked up that she was probably
    hearing well enough to understand but not well enough to actually
    imitate the complex patterns of sound that go into ordinary
    speech.  She went in to a specialist, who diagnozed the underlying
    ear infection.  She got ear tubes for the ears and therapy to help
    her pronunciation catch up with her age.  And her personality
    changed almost overnight!  She became bouncy, confident,
    talkative, cheerful, and much more interested and socialable once
    she could hear and communicate better.
    
    Caroline was 4 when this took place.  The youngest child I heard
    of them dealing with was about 3, though I know there are
    specialists to deal with even infants who are hearing-impaired.
    
    I would say if .0 is at all worried about the child's development,
    she should take the child to a pediatrician.  In all likelihood
    you'll find out the child's speech is normal for a 27-month-old,
    and if there is a problem, you'll be able to make an intelligent
    choice about it instead of worrying about what might or might not
    be a problem.
    
    --bonnie

re .10:

    It seems that there's sometimes a connection between late speech
    and learning disabilities.

    My wife used to tutor a dyslexic child who hadn't started talking
    until he was 5.  He also had fairly severe ADD (attention deficit
    disorder).  At 9, he had no speech problems (unless you consider a
    Boston accent a speech problem).

    Didn't Einstein start talking late?  He was also learning disabled.

    I entered a long note in the other parenting version on my son's run in
    with speech dysfluency (Feb 1990). He was 3 and a half at the time. He was
    basically stuttering terribly. We ended up having him assessed through
    our MA town school dept. Per MA law, your school system
    must provide this assessment and any necessary intervention free of
    charge for any resident's child over the age of three. (of course, it's
    not really free, we pay taxes for it!)
    
    The town speech therapist was responsive, caring and plain good at what
    she did. Our son's problem had disappeared on its own a few days before
    his assessment, but she still evaluated him and provided reassurance
    that his dysfluency was a normal developmental stage for pre-school
    boys. She initially agreed to the assessment because of the emotional
    pain the speech problem was causing my son.  "Mommy, I am sorry I can't
    say the words right."  Usually, specialists aren't worried about certain
    speech problems which appear to be part of the child's natural learning
    of language skills unless the child begins to realize there is a
    problem, becomes angry with himself, afraid of trying to talk, self
    conscious, etc... 
    
    Your child's situation may be totally different, but some hints as a
    parent:
    		-Speak more slowly and clearly to your child
    		-Read books more "    "             "
    		-NEVER acknowledge your concern for your child's speech
     		problem, make them feel that it is NOT a big deal. (We were
    		showing too much empathy and shared pain for my son's
    	   	problem instead of really ignoring it.)
    	
    	
    For what it's worth,
    Sandy

    Another non-expert here, but just wanted to share personal experience
    with my nephew.  Jonathan is quite bright and had a good vocabulary at
    age 3.  However, he had difficulty with specific combinations, such as
    "bl".  WHen referring to my parent's dog, a black lab, he'd say
    "Where's that GLack dog". Instead of BLack dog.  At first we thought it 
    was just difficulty with the formation of the sound, and that he would 
    grow out of it as his verbal coordination developed. After seeing an
    eay-nose-throat specialist, it was determined that Jonathan can't hear
    well enough to distinguish between very closely-related sounds.  After
    having his adenoids removed, tonsils removed, and tubes put into his
    ears all to help cure-prevent recurring ear infections, it seems to have 
    done the trick.  
    

    My daughter could say words at 6 months, and spoke in sentences
    (2-3 words) by 11 months. She still has trouble pronouncing things
    even though she talks like a five year old. I have never even thought
    to worry about it as she is only 2 1/2. I always assumed they had
    trouble pronouncing things at this age.
    
    I wouldn't worry at all.
    
    Dot

    My daughter was very late starting to talk.  When she was 3, her doctor
    recommended she be evaluated by a speech therapist.  At the time she
    had a few vowel sounds and maybe four consonant sounds only at the
    beginning of a word.  Within a year she was saying real words, but 
    still only two syllables.  Last January she finished her therapy until
    this coming school year.  She only has work on her R left to do.  It
    has taken a lot of time and understanding support on my part (I'm a
    single parent) to get her where she is today.  She is not afraid to
    talk to people, or to try new words.  Also her work with the therapist
    has helped her concentration in other areas.  
    
    				Ellen
    

    See note 158 for more info on the Early Intervention Program.
    
    Also, I have my 28 month old son enrolled in speech therapy. I'd be
    more than happy to talk to you about it.
    
    Gale

    My son is almost 2 1/2 and has an excellent vocabulary, can carry
    on whole conversations with adults, etc.  I'm very happy with his
    speech development, but he also has a lot of trouble pronouncing
    certain sounds.  I know this is common at his age, but I was 
    wondering when they grow out of it.  
    
    He absolutely cannot say any 2-consonant combination at all (he usually
    just pronounces the first letter, except in the case of most S- 
    combinations, which come out F.  So "spoon" becomes "foon", "small"
    becomes "fall", etc.).  He also systematically substitutes one letter
    for another.  All C's turn into T's (cookie-->tookie), all G's turn
    into D's, which in combination with the first problem, sometimes make
    it difficult to figure out what he's saying.
    
    I was just wondering when I should start worrying about this.  (My pedi
    jokingly says if he's still having trouble by 5, let him know).

    
    At 2 1/2, I wouldn't worry too much.  Just DON'T talk to him the same
    way he talks!!  
    
    Chris D. 

    We had our first speech eval done by the public school department when
    AJ was right at 3 years old.  They came to the house, he was more
    relaxed and they got better results.  The second phase which is
    psycological and intellectual maturity was *attempted* at the
    elementary school.  They never completed it, too much distraction from
    being in a new environment.
    
    Call you school dept, if you want/feel you need and speech eval.  It's
    usually done by whoever works with the Special needs kids.
    
    Lyn

As far as I can tell, it's normal.  If the pedi isn't worried about it,
and if it seems to you that other kids talk that way, then he's probably
just fine.

Evan (at age 4) still doesn't get some sounds right, and he's one of the best
speakers at daycare.  You should hear how he used to say "Dumptruck", though...
(no "P", "f" instead of "tr").  :-}

        Carol

    Re: .-1.  Thanks for the input.  Fortunately, Marc's tr- combinations
    just come out t- :-)  So we get tuck, tain, etc. (for truck, train).
    

At 2 1/2 this is normal ... and probably will be up to age 4-5, and by then
most of the problems should sort themselves out.

Remember too at this age, they are experimenting with the sounds of words.
They will often deliberately mis-pronounce words to GET A REACTION!  Obtuse
isn't it ?  So, sometimes deliberately correcting them causes more problems!

Our eldest, at ten, still has difficulties with some sounds like s sh and ch
and has the habit of thrusting her tongue forward, pushing out ehr front teeth,
so she has been doing some speech therapy.  The interesting thing is that
our 3 year old has suddenly corrected, by herself, some of her major 
mispronounciations!  She used to substitute br for dr and pr for tr.
So she would wear a bress or prousers, and would watch Sesame Spreet.  It is
almost as if seeing her big sister go to speech therapy was good enough reason
to try to do it herself!

Stuart

Both our Pedi and Juli's head instructor told us that Juli's speech was
excellent and well above average, YET ...  I'm the only one who seems to
understand what she's trying to say!

Even her Daddy will say to me "what does Juli want?!"  Many of Juli's words
are properly pronounced, but she often has trouble getting a sentence correct,
or she gets so excited that she runs her words together AND drops a verb along
the way ... and unless you're quick to figure out what she WANTS, she then
gets frustrated (and thinks you're refusing her request), when, in fact, it's
not understood just what she wants!

Instead of reacting quickly or second guessing her, I'll ask her to slow down,
calm down and repeat her request.  Of course, this often falls on deaf ears
(2-1/2 year old-ers are not known to have an abundance of patience!), so she's
shouting her request at the same time I'm fetching what I'm guessing she wants.

My Mom and Dad (in particular) have a tough time understanding Juli's sentences
(they understand the major words, but not necessarily the sentence).  My Mom
is recovering from surgery and hadn't seen Juli for 3+ weeks.  Her first 
reaction is "my, has Juli's speech improved!"  My Mom didn't have any trouble
understanding Juli this past Sunday ... yet to me, I didn't notice a big
difference (because I listen to her daily, so the changes are subtle).

So I'd say your son is "normal" and probably improving daily, you're just too
close to him to notice the subtle changes.

Dottie 

    Yes, you're right, I know Marc is normal.  I was just wondering when
    the pronunciation difficulties will clear themselves up.  I've also
    noticed that other people are able to understand him more and more
    lately, so I guess he _is_ improving.  I can get pretty much all of it,
    but when I just can't figure out what's he's saying I ask him to tell
    me a different way, and he'll usually come up with another way to say
    it that I can understand.
    
    I'm sure the C-->T, etc. problems are that he physically cannot make
    the sound because I'm trying to teach him some Hebrew, and he
    mispronounces the Hebrew words (which he's never heard before) in the
    exact same way.
    
    My favorite (mis)pronunciations are how we set the table with forks and
    foons (spoons), and he loves to go to the playground to go on the fings
    (swings).  And, of course, C is for Tookie :-))

    My limited knowledge of speech development (acquired because of my
    hearing-impaired daughter's need for speech therapy) tell me that you
    both have cued in on exactly the most common speech problems ("lisping"
    and confusion with t/d and g/k) with youngsters.  They're later
    developing sounds than, say, b/p and m because they're tougher to
    hear/discriminate (d SOUNDS a lot like g) and harder to imitate (you
    can't SEE how those sounds are made).  In other words--it's totally
    normal not to have those down at 2 1/2 (IM unprofessional O)!
    
    -Tracy
    

    Ryan is now 3 1/2 - we noticed for quite a while that he dropped
    the first "s" on words so that spoon was "poon" etc. If we called
    it by the name he did (i.e used the word poon) he would correct us...
    he simply wasn't at a point to be able to enunciate it himself.
    
    One thing I've read is that you shouldn't always correct your child's
    speech as they may become inhibited about using words.  Instead,
    use the correct forms of words/verbs etc. yourself. Harvard Business
    Review had an excellent article last year about development of
    language that pointed out how kids learn - as much if not more
    from their peers as from us. How they begin to incorporate changes
    into their language skills is amazing - e.g. learn that feet means
    more than one foot, instead of using the word foots.
    
    Give it time - sounds normal. You may find by age 3 that he's moved
    forward with a number of the sounds.
    

    When David mispronounces a word, we work it like this:
    
    David (2.25 years old) : It's a bayoon!
    Me  (I'm not telling : ) That's right, it is a balloon!
    
    That way we reinforce his knowledge, and reinforce the correct
    pronounciation without defeating his enthusiasm to learn new words.
    Sarah

    Re: .-1.  Yes, I do that as much as possible.  Sometimes, the
    mispronounced word is actually an English word, so I unwittingly repeat
    the mispronunciation:  
    
    Marc:  Mom, there's some toasters on the table.
    Me:    There are toasters on the table?
    Marc:  No, toasters.  For putting your cup on (coasters).
    Me:    Ohhhhh.
    
    Or:
    
    Marc:  That bottle has some beach in it.
    Me:    ??  You mean we got it at the beach? Huh? 
    Marc:  No, Mom, BEACH!  For cleaning up the table. (bleach)
    Me:    Ohhhhh.
    

    re.29
    Yup, somtimes it's me that doesn't quite get it also.  David has a
    small tool set which is his favorite toy.  He also has a small step
    stool which he uses to get into bed and onto the toilet.
    David: Where's my tool?
    Me   : Did you look in your toy box?
    David: Noooooooo (very drawn out,  because he knows that's an absurd idea)
    Me   : Ok, I'll look.  (I then hand him his tool set, and he SCREAMS..)
    David: NO! MY TOOL!
    Goofy me, didn't realize he wanted his STOOL!  He can't quite explain
    himself yet, so asking him why he wants it doesn't work. Don't you just
    love the looks you get when YOU are the one who is mistaken?
    Sarah

    But sometimes the way they mispronounce is so cute, you hate to correct
    them.  At ~3 years old, my daughter would not say butterfly, she would
    say flutterfly.

    My 3 year old has an excellent command of the English language except
    for ONE word!  Yellow.  She consistantly pronounces it "wellow".  When
    asked to repeat "yell" and "ow" she does it perfectly.  But when I
    point out the color to her and ask her what the color is she says
    "wellow!"

Our best "mangling of the english language was his pronounciation of 
dessert, which was pronounced with a definite "bronx" type accent as "zoit",
and as in the last reply we tried to split the word in half, and empasised the
DE part of dessert, now if he asks for "zoit", I say something like "excuse me
I didn't understand what you wanted, to which he will re pronounce the word
correctly with *emphasis*, it then becomes DEEEsert.

The first time my husband heard the New improved version of this word he sort
of looked at me and said "had some trouble with that word I see!"...AYUP!!

Lyn

    My neighbor's spoke terrific English very early but like .32, she had
    trouble with just one word: she pronounced "knife" as "life."  So she
    was heard to say at the dinner table:  "Mom, I need a life!"
                                           

    
    I'm normally just read-only in here, but had to reply to this one!  My
    3 year old niece says nearly everything perfectly, but insists on
    saying the work "take" with the letters mixed round.  So she says:
    
    "I'll kate this with me" etc ... it does sound cute!
    
    Sam
    

    This is purely and Untrained opinion...
    
    Kate instead of take for a three year old, sounds like nothing to be
    alarmed about.  I would simply offer to her the correct prounouciation. 
    When AJ does it I usually will just ask "do you mean [take]?" or whatever
    I think he is trying to say.
    
    On a similarly related topic, AJ (he's 5+3months) keeps mixing things
    up, such as last night he insisted that 7 had to be written upside
    down, similarly he keeps calling 9's as 6's, p's as b's and so on.
    Do I consider this a problem?  Should I look at it as a dyslexia
    problem (my husband had mild dyslexia as a child, which manifests
    itself today as severe misspelling) do I explore the possibility that
    he has a vision problem.
    
    We have been using the numbers on the car radio/clock and asking him to
    identify them.  Yes many of the Digital numbers do look similar, plus
    have many qualities of letters being so squarish shaped.  Plus he seems
    to get real close to the display and sort of squint when we ask him to
    read the numbers, but I'm not all that sure it's because of a vision
    problem.
    
    Any ideas?
    
    Lyn