My 4-year-old girl says “frain frack” instead of “train track” and “wewwow” instead of “yellow.” Both problems seem similar–using the lips instead of making the sound all the way back in the mouth where it should be made. If I enunciate clearly and have her repeat after me, then she can say it correctly, so seems like it’s not a hearing problem (or is it?). She’s going for a hearing test next week.
Any speech pathologists in the house? Are these age appropriate mistakes, or is something definitely wrong here? What’s our next stop after the hearing test?
Should I make her say it correctly every time? We’ve just been ignoring it really on the theory that it will eventually go away.
When young our son substituted “f” for other consonants or clusters he could not pronounce easily. One of those was “tr.” This was a bit humorous when the thanked his great aunt for the toy truck she’d given him by excitedly saying “oh truck!”
It went away on its own, but certainly you can bring it up with her pediatrician the next time you visit. I suspect the advice will be to ignore it for a while at least.
My oldest son had a severe-to-profound impediment when he started kindergarten. Most of his substitutions were “y” sounds…he said “yiddow yands” instead of little hands, and “yop yign” for stop sign, for instance. In spite if it, he was fairly easy to understand. Anyway, he started speech therapy and by Christmas he had progressed enough to be released. Truthfully, I wouldn’t sweat it much until she starts school, unless your pediatrician or hearing person advises differently. Good luck!
My granddaughter, when she was old enough to write and to begin losing teeth, wrote us a note that one tooth was “wile wigle”. Eventually, we worked out that that was how she said, and therefore wrote “really wiggly”. She is not 16 and speaks fine. Still, at a certain point, if speech doesn’t improve, speech therapy might be in order. But I think 4 may be a bit early.
My daughter started straightening out those sounds around three and a half.
Most states offer free evaluations - often through the district. We did that for my son, who was behind, but not far enough behind to qualify for services (he was quiet with a limited vocabulary at three, but his sister talked up a storm).
My daughter did have speech therapy in fifth and sixth grade to work through some residual issues with r’s. (see, had him evaluated because his vocabulary at three was limited - and he talked clear as a bell with a normal vocabulary once he caught up - she hasn’t shut up since she was eighteen months, but needed therapy for her r’s - and because that made her a special needs kid under no child left behind - her test scores are pretty good and they needed a little help on their special needs test scores. I really suspect the school would have let the r’s go if it weren’t for needing a test score boost in that population)
See if you can have her evaluated, just to make sure there are not problems easier corrected now.
I’m seeing the /t/ sound listed as normally developed between ages 2-4 (cite), up to age 5 in other sources. I suspect that /tr/ is a bit harder than /t/, especially since we generally pronounce /tr/ as /chr/.
Speech Pathologist intern here. It sounds like she has, if anything, what is called a phonological process disorder.
It’s not exactly the same thing as an articulation disorder. What sticks out most to me is when you said she can produce it correctly with your prompt. If it was an articulation disorder, she would not be able to produce it even with help.
the substitution of /f/ for /t/ would be called fronting, since she is trying to produce that sound with the front of her mouth (lips on teeth) for /f/ as opposed to the normal /t/ (made a little back with the tongue touching the alveolar ridge.) I’m a little concerned about this one because at her age, the /t/ should have already been mastered.
As for substituting /w/ for /l/ and “y”, I’d say that is pretty common at her age. I had a client and I was working with him on /l/, all the books I read said that the age of mastery can be as high as seven years old! So, she still has a bit of time before you start to worry on that one.
I think /y/ can be a bit of a problem if her tongue muscles are weak…With both “y” and /r/, you have to pull your tongue towards the back of your mouth and elevate it ever so slightly to get the right sounds. Many of our sounds have tactile cues…“To make a “th”, but your tongue between your teeth”…But when there’s nothing to serve as a tactile cue, it can take longer to master. Again, my client had trouble with /r/ which is similar to the initial “y”, so I had worked with him on getting that tongue back with lots of practice.
In short, the /f/ for /t/ concerns me a little, but with some drilling I could imagine that going away on its own. The other ones I’m not so concerned about. I can dig out my old books and find what experts suggest the age of mastery should be, if you’re interested.
Also, as some people have mentioned above, there are places where you can get free evaluations. It’s worth looking into after getting the hearing test done, I think. My friend recently had one done for her son (language delay, sadly she wouldn’t let me be the one to poke around him :D) and it was really simple. They even came to her house and did a home eval, which really helps to have the child in as natural of environment as possible. We have lots of age-appropriate tests that will help to pinpoint exactly what’s going on. It’s pretty cool.
When my son was 4 both he and I were getting frusterated because he couldn’t say certain words(sounds) and I didn’t know what he wanted.
Had him tested through the school district and they recomended he see a speech therapist. They provided one and I took him once a week for 40 minutes Feb thru May.
In the fall he started Kindergarten and his grade school had it’s own therapist. He saw her once a week for 30 minutes (pulled out of class).
Same thing for first grade. In January we met with her and she said he was done. He speaks fine now.
As a young child I couldn’t pronounce a lot of consonants or consonant blends. My first name “Jeff” came out as “Depp”, for example. My older brother could always understand me, my parents had trouble occasionally. Once I started school, other kids teasing was enough motivation for me to really pay attention to the speech therapist who happened to live a block and a half away AND to practice the exercises he gave me. He was pretty good. I was fascinated by his Wollensak reel to reel tape recorder (this was the early 60s) and as a reward for doing well, he taught me how to blow into his valve trombone.
It didn’t take very long for him to straighten out my speech. I didn’t have to see him in 2nd grade.
In Michigan, you can check with your county’s Intermediate school district to see where these services are offered. At our district, the program is called, “Project Find” and they screen kids 4 years and younger for speech, hearing and other developmental issues.
I would imagine that in other states it is similar. You can also check with your county’s health department. Most states have some sort of screening program that is usually free. It is usually offered through an Early Care or “Early-On” type of program.
You can also check with your health insurance to see if an evaluation is covered. My insurance covered the initial evaluation, but not the ongoing therapy. My son is now 5, and had/has issues with some sounds, L R and TH, especially.
One concern we had was that his Frenulum was short, and he might not have been physically able to make some sounds without significant therapy. That turned out not to be the case, and after a few weeks of therapy, he made so much progress on his Ls that we pulled him out and are working with him on our own.
There are speech therapy apps available for iPad/iPhone that provide easy access to sets of words for each type of sound, in game formats that kids take to. If she can make the sounds correctly with concentration, this type of work, even just 15min a day, may get her comfortable with making the sounds in normal speech.
Heh. It is indeed a good speech therapist who can disguise more therapyas a reward.
OP, yeah, get her checked out. If the answer after an evaluation is, “she’s fine, let her be,” then at least you know and you can worry about more pertinent things. And as others have said, if money is an issue, ask a local public school how to get it done.
