“I want the ‘lellow’ cup,” says three-year-old Seri Stinson. “It’s the yellow cup,”
clarifies her mother, Suzanne.
Seri watches her mother closely as she repeats the word again. “But it’s the same,”
she insists. “Your mouth does the same!”
Suzanne laughs, realizing her daughter is quite right — the only difference between
L and Y is in the movement of her tongue, something Seri can't quite see. No wonder
she’s finding it a hard sound to say.
“There are some sounds that preschoolers typically have trouble with,” explains
Janet Campbell, a speech-language pathologist with the First Words program in Ottawa.
“Sounds develop in sequence, and the more difficult ones are usually mastered last.”
The most challenging sounds? Campbell says they are CH, J, L, R and TH. “It’s quite
typical for a child to be in grade one without being able to say R and TH,” she
says. “And if that’s all your child is having trouble with at five or six, I wouldn’t
worry about it.”
By three or 3¼, Campbell feels, your child’s speech should be comprehensible most
of the time to most people. (Parents tend to understand their own preschoolers even
if nobody else does, so that’s not a fair test.) Many children have some idiosyncratic
words like “hanguber” for hamburger, but those aside, most of their speech should
be clear.
Some kids who are still working on certain letters sound as though they have accents.
“If you’re starting to suspect your child was destined to live in Boston, it may
just be that she’s not yet figured out the letter R,” explains Campbell. “So ‘carport’
comes out ‘cahpoht.’”
If your preschooler isn’t speaking clearly, or has trouble with many sounds, Campbell
suggests seeking out a speech and language expert for an assessment. That’s what
Natalie McNaughton did when her 3½-year-old son, Davey, had difficulty articulating.
She understood him, but nobody else did.
“Davey would say things like ‘puh me on a wing’ when he meant ‘push me on the swing,’”
McNaughton explains. “At first I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his speech
— it sounded so strange — and then I realized he was leaving out all the softer
sounds. I thought perhaps he was having trouble hearing.”
She was right. A visit to their family doctor revealed that Davey had fluid behind
his eardrums that had lingered after an ear infection had resolved. For him, it
was like listening to the world from underwater. And, while he had tubes inserted
to remove the extra fluid, Davey’s speech didn’t improve until he began having sessions
with a speech-language pathologist.
Another sign parents should watch for, according to Campbell, are words with no
endings. For example, after turning three, your child should not be saying ‘cah’
for ‘cat.’ Some children may not be able to manage two consonants together — saying
‘poon’ instead of ‘spoon’ — and this is also a possible concern if it persists after
age 3½.
If your child is mispronouncing some words or not able to say certain sounds, what
should you do? Campbell tries to dissuade parents from correcting their children.
“If your child says, ‘I see a tat!’ and you say, ‘No, it’s a cat, now say cat,’
you risk frustrating your child and discouraging her from talking.” She suggests
responding to your child’s attempts to communicate in a positive way and, at the
same time, modelling the correct speech. Your response could be, “Yes, I see the
cat, too. It’s a big cat, isn’t it?”
It can also be a problem if you find your child’s unique pronunciations so charming
that you add them to your own vocabulary. “Your child needs you to say the words
properly, to be an example he can follow,” Campbell reminds parents.
While it is important to catch emerging speech problems early, Campbell also points
out the range of normal “is very wide.” One two-year-old may be speaking in very
clear, complete sentences while her five-year-old brother is still calling himself
‘Wobbie’ instead of ‘Robbie.’ If you’re concerned, talk to your family doctor or
paediatrician about a referral to a speech specialist.
Sound Stage
Your child should be able to pronounce the following:
- By age three: all the vowels, plus P, B, M, N, W, D, T, K, G and H.
- By age 3½: F and S
- The most challenging sounds: CH, J, L, R and TH.
By Teresa Pitman. This article is kindly provided by:
