Preschoolers Language - Pronouns

[Gena]

At what age did your child use pronouns correctly?


DS is 3 years 8 months and has a lot of trouble with pronouns. He can use them correctly in sentences that we have explicitly taught him to say, such as: “I’m hungry”, “I have to go potty”, and “I bonked my head.” (These are the three most common sentences in our house.) However, in his spontaneous speech, he always refers to himself by name and confuses “I” and “you” as well as “my” and “your”. For example when I comb his hair he will say, “Mommy is combing your hair.”


DS does pretty well with third person pronouns. He does get “he” and “she” mixed up, but this is due to still having trouble telling boys from girls. He sometimes refers to people as “it”, but that’s improving.


DS is due for a new IEP (Individualized Education Plan) in March. Hubby and I want to have this issue included in the IEP, and it would be helpful to know from other parents what is typical at this age.

Thanks.

[Wife_and_mommy]

My dd is a few weeks older than your ds. She doesn't do what you described except very occasionally. I recall that I've repeated back to her the correct pronoun but it's been probably since Xmas since the last time I did it.

Hope this is helpful.

[ellies mom]

My daughter did a lot of pronoun mixing too. I asked a kindergarten teacher friend about it and she said that it wasn't something to worry about. They out grow it on their own as they develop language rules naturally. She also said that it wasn't uncommon for it to last into kindergarten but if they were still doing as they were leaving kindergarten, then is was a cause for concern.

About the only time we ever said anything to her was when she would say "Pick you up" and occasionally we would joke, "oh you want to pick me up? OK" But other than that we ignored it and it went away.

[Gena]

My daughter did a lot of pronoun mixing too. I asked a kindergarten teacher friend about it and she said that it wasn't something to worry about. They out grow it on their own as they develop language rules naturally. She also said that it wasn't uncommon for it to last into kindergarten but if they were still doing as they were leaving kindergarten, then is was a cause for concern.

Thanks for the insight. Unfortunately, DS does not develop language rules naturally due to his disorder, so this isn't something that will correct itself with time. Every aspect of language needs to be explicitly taught to him.

It's good to know that for some kids this can last into kindergarten. That means we have a good amount of time to work on this goal, but we should probably start now.

[gatorsmom]

My son was/still is on an IEP and that was one of the issues he had. He constantly mixed up pronouns.

At the parent/teacher conferences we discussed that that was one of the things we felt he definitely needed help with. The teachers/therapists agreed and worked on it with him. At home, we also gently corrected him when he made a mistake. The issue cleared up with the teachers and DH and I working on it.

You know, the therapists will be able to tell you if it's normal at your DC's age to be making this mistake so often.

[Gena]

Lisa,

Did you have this as a goal on your son's IEP or was it just an issue you worked on?

Yeah, I wanted to ask the therapist about it at our parent-teacher conference last week, but the conference ran long and I didn't get a chance to raise the question. I think I'll write a note about this to the speech therapist in DS's communication book this week.

The new IEP meeting is a month away, but I'm already stressing about setting new goals. I feel like we were unprepared last year and just went with the goals the school suggested instead of what we thought was important.

[american_mama]

I knew your post reminded me of someone and Ijust remembered who. A 5 year old neighbor mixed up he/she/it pronouns quite a bit, also maybe mine and yours. She wasn't big on using names for anyone (me, my younger daughter). It was sometimes a little hard to understand her meaning. She had been in a special ed pre-K program for speech issues and probably something else, and she continued special ed in kindergarten either as supplemental services or in a complete special ed classroom (I never knew). I think the pronoun mix up continued at least halfway through kindergarten, maybe a bit more. We haven't seen her much since she entered first grade and the family moved.

The interesting thing was that whatever her learning and speech issues were, they just weren't too apparent in the neighborhood. She and DD played together beautifully, she was very physically active, well-behaved, and seemed completely typical except for three or four very, very minor situations over the course of the 1 1/2 years I saw her regularly. My DD never had any clue that her friend learned differently or got different services in school.