What's going on with my 5 y.o.'s speech?

[drako]

My pedi suggested I take her to be evaluated by early intervention after her 3 y.o. well visit. She was evaluated and didn't have a delay and they said it was all age appropriate. She still has some difficulty with some sounds but they have gotten better and it's getting easier for other people to understand her. Just the past few days she is saying "firk" for fork and "herse" for horse and having difficulty saying it properly. She always used to say fauk (omitting the r sound and similar with horse. Is it now she is trying to get the "r" sound in there but having trouble with the "or" sound? She doesn't have trouble saying "or" alone but putting it with the other sounds is difficult. What can I do to help her with this?

[toby]

My pedi suggested I take her to be evaluated by early intervention after her 3 y.o. well visit. She was evaluated and didn't have a delay and they said it was all age appropriate. She still has some difficulty with some sounds but they have gotten better and it's getting easier for other people to understand her. Just the past few days she is saying "firk" for fork and "herse" for horse and having difficulty saying it properly. She always used to say fauk (omitting the r sound and similar with horse. Is it now she is trying to get the "r" sound in there but having trouble with the "or" sound? She doesn't have trouble saying "or" alone but putting it with the other sounds is difficult. What can I do to help her with this?


I have no idea what I am talking about, but DS went through some speech "things" that straightened out on their own. DS is 9 and has to start speech for /r/, so that is awesome that your DD can say the sound (and maybe, like you say, she is trying to put it all together). I would let it ride for a few months and then, if it doesn't resolve, either have a phone consult or bring her in to have her evaluated again. I wouldn't specifically correct the word, but sometimes you can repeat it so she hears what it should sound like... "you'd like me to get you a fork?"

[citymama]

Interesting. My DD (nearly 4) pronounces words the same way as yours used to - use w for r, so four is faw, etc. When we visited my parents a couple of months ago, they thought it was cute and kept imitating her. They would also talk about it more. I genuinely think she had no idea she was saying the words differently than us. After we left, she started to over-compensate in trying to make the r sound. The sound came out a bit like you describe - herse for horse. But the weirdest part is she started to stretch her mouth out in bizarre ways - she told me she was trying to say "r" and making her mouth like that helped her. Of course, she wasn't making r, and although she stopped doing the strange pronunciation after we didn't draw attention to it, the strange mouth movements have continued. My lesson is to not make a big deal about the way she speaks. She's not even 4 (and your DD is little too), and the "r" sound is not an easy one to make. They will get it in due course.

[Philly Mom]

Interesting. My DD (nearly 4) pronounces words the same way as yours used to - use w for r, so four is faw, etc. When we visited my parents a couple of months ago, they thought it was cute and kept imitating her. They would also talk about it more. I genuinely think she had no idea she was saying the words differently than us. After we left, she started to over-compensate in trying to make the r sound. The sound came out a bit like you describe - herse for horse. But the weirdest part is she started to stretch her mouth out in bizarre ways - she told me she was trying to say "r" and making her mouth like that helped her. Of course, she wasn't making r, and although she stopped doing the strange pronunciation after we didn't draw attention to it, the strange mouth movements have continued. My lesson is to not make a big deal about the way she speaks. She's not even 4 (and your DD is little too), and the "r" sound is not an easy one to make. They will get it in due course.

I just wanted to chime in and agree that you should not draw attention to it. I spent much of my childhood in speech therapy. "R" was a big reason why and so was "L" and the two together, wow. I still have to think before I speak. My brother's friends used to tease me about it (yes they were in 6th grade and I was in 1st when it was really bad teasing). They would call to me around school and make fun of how I said my brother's name. It was not helpful and made things worse. Good thing I have a good ego because it never upset me. By 7th grade, I still had some issues. The kids at school started to make fun a bit, repeating how I said certain words, and I regressed, a lot. I had to work hard to compensate for hearing the word misprounounced on purpose by my peers. Oh and my senior year book was full of references to how I said certain words when I was 12/13. Lovely. Again, good thing I have a healthy self-confidence.

[citymama]

I just wanted to chime in and agree that you should not draw attention to it. I spent much of my childhood in speech therapy. "R" was a big reason why and so was "L" and the two together, wow. I still have to think before I speak. My brother's friends used to tease me about it (yes they were in 6th grade and I was in 1st when it was really bad teasing). They would call to me around school and make fun of how I said my brother's name. It was not helpful and made things worse. Good thing I have a good ego because it never upset me. By 7th grade, I still had some issues. The kids at school started to make fun a bit, repeating how I said certain words, and I regressed, a lot. I had to work hard to compensate for hearing the word misprounounced on purpose by my peers. Oh and my senior year book was full of references to how I said certain words when I was 12/13. Lovely. Again, good thing I have a healthy self-confidence.

Aww, big hugs! I think about my DD2 in that situation. She is shy and introverted and already says no one plays with her (not true, but that's her self-image). She would be devastated. I have to make sure my older DD never teases her sister about the way she speaks.

[mom2binsd]

She is demonstrating typical developmental changes in her speech, there are so many different types of "r", the really hard one's are "controlled by vowels" like the one's you are describing and often in the middle position within words.

As a speech therapist, we don't tend to work on the "r" sound as young as 5 as developmentally it's not expected to be mastered at that age, just like we don't expect kids to be able to master gross motor skills or why we don't expect perfect letter formation in 5 year olds, the articulation of "r" is still an emerging skill for 5-7 year olds, and even for 8-9 year olds.

At this point try to just model correct speech for her which I'm sure you're doing, but don't say "say it like this..." when she misarticulates a word with r in it...if you can later on model the correct articulation but don't draw attention to her error and it's completely fine at this point.

If I remember, there was a very recent thread on this...aha..

http://windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?475506-Speech-for-r-sound-please-help!&highlight=speech+therapy