I’m not saying he has a speech impediment, but he runs his words together until they’re very difficult to understand, and it’s frustrating both of us.
Example: “Can we go to Wal-Mart?” (HELL no!) comes out sounding like "kebwigowama?
I have watched him speaking and he doesn’t open his mouth enough to enunciate the words clearly, and when I have to ask him 2-3 times what he’s saying, he gives up and says “never mind!”
I know he doesn’t understand, and he’s only 8, so I am hoping he outgrows this.
Yeah, I reckon that would work, and not be too far off the mark either. I lost some of my hearing playing in all those bands. I even remember when it happened.
I hit my crash cymbal wrong, and something changed from there on out.
I had that exact problem until I was maybe 13, and got so frustrated when people would ask me to repeat what I’d said again and again.
The good news is, once I made an effort to speak slowly and enunciate, it started happening that way naturally. Tell your grandson that, while it might sound like he’s speaking the right way, it’d be better for other people if he enunciated and slowed his speech down a little.
Man, the kids here at the library all talk like that. I hate having to ask them to repeat themselves ten times, because then I look like the moron. Seriously, why does everybody MUMBLE now? (I had a hearing test a few months ago, mind you, and the lady said I hear “like a bat.”)
Mary MacKracken relates a “cure” for such a child in her book “A Circle of Children.” She asks the child to say it faster, softer, lower, slower, louder, etc. When he gets the right sound, she tells him to try to talk like that all the time.
This is something that he will surely outgrow. In addition to suggesting that he slow down his speech and enunciate each word, continue to show a little frustration (or perhaps give him a somewhat confused look) whenever his sentences are incoherent. Not to a level where you are letting loose exasperated sighs, but enough so that he can understand that a clear channel of communication must be established for people to interact even on a basic level.
Then again, you could always try a speech therapist. This seems unnecessary, though, and I think just given enough time, the problem will right itself.
My (9 year old)son, who used to enunciate very well, has gotten lazy because his classmates are like that. We simply remind him that he needs to enunciate better. It pisses me off when people are lazy and just slur everything together, and my children will be well-spoken if I have to kill them to make it happen Seriously, though, he just needs to be reminded to enunciate. Do it often enough and he will learn.
I had him the whole afternon today, and several times I told him, “Julian, your old Opa Bill doesn’t hear so well anymore, so when you talk to me, make sure you’re looking at me and speak slowly, okay, honey?”
“Like in that movie about Beethoven, Opa?”, he asked.
My 13-y-o son talks too fast and slurs his words. He’s done it for years. It has gotten better as he’s gotten older, but there are times when I can’t understand what the heck he’s saying. (And times when I can’t understand what the heck he’s talking about, but that’s a whole 'nother issue! ;))
Both of my daughters have a tendency to speak fast and slurred (and they’re 20 and 15). The 20 year old has finally started to slow down and speak more clearly, but the 15 year old is still at it. It’s bad enough in the car, when she talks to the window, but the worse is when I get a message from her that says “ok,sothisafternoonIgotdrillandyagottapdjfkhsfbfhsdbfhsld”
Twenty minutes later, after listening to it repeatedly, I still have no idea what I “gotta” do. When she has to walk home often enough cause she couldn’t tell me clearly when and where she needed a ride, I guess she’ll figure it out.
My son, at 7, is still speaking well. I have no hope that it will last.
I’m 20, and I still have problems with this, though I’m better now than I was ten years ago. Probably the best advice I can give is this: don’t get irritated with him. It’s at least as annoying to be unable to get people to understand you as it is to be unable to understand him, and being exasperated doesn’t help him moderate his speech.
That is soooo hilarious and makes me wonder (and excuse me if this is far-fetched sounding) how much of that is drug-related “sameness”?
Please excuse me if that does not seem clear, but what I wanted to express was, how much of that “runningtogether” of words might be emulation of “hip-speak?”
I recently raised this complaint with the bunch of twenty-somethings I work with. They are all often hard to understand because they rush everything they are saying, as though if they don’t just get it all out in a stream someone will interrupt them.
I often tell them, “Slow down you have my complete attention.” It seems to work.
I have this problem with sullen teenage cashiers who have been repeating the same catchphrase umptillion times until their sentence has slurred into unintelligible gobbledegook.
Once I determinedly asked a girl at Target to repeat her phrase to me about four times over, and I still don’t know what the hell she was saying. She got all eye-rolly and sneery, too.
Quasimodem, I hate to tell you this, but it sounds like a classic case of yankee changeling disorder. How close an eye on him have his parents been keeping on him? It only takes moments for a yankee to sneak into your house, steal your baby, and leave one of their own in its place.
For confirmation, ask him his opinion about the Red Sox and offer him a Fluffernutter and a frappe. If he seems positive about any of these things, you’ll know you’ve got a fast talking yankee on your hands.
