I recently invited my favorite Speech Language Pathologist (fancy words for “speech therapist”), Liz Blake to answer questions from my Facebook followers. (Be sure to follow me on Facebook to take advantage of future opportunities like this!) I will feature the rest of her answers at a later date, so stay tuned for those.
I have worried about several of these questions myself – so I am sure you too will be relieved to see these concerns addressed by Ms. Liz.
Alex: What should be done with a child who has trouble with their r’s? (5 year old)
Alex, thank you for your question. There are developmental normative data for when children are able to produce the specific sounds of speech. Typically, the “r” is one of the last sounds to develop. It is not unusual for a child at age 5 to still be waiting for this sound to emerge. You can always contact the speech-language pathologist at your child’s school to request more information.
Melissa: My soon to be 3 year old son has a little lisp. I don’t mind it now but I do want to continue working on it as he is getting older. However, he still drools a bit as he talks. I am associating it with the lisp. Is this common? How do you go about working on eliminating the lisp/drool?
Melissa, thank you for your question. In regards to your observation of your 3 year old’s lisp/drooling, I would recommend that you discuss this with your pediatrician. Children typically exhibit excessive saliva (drooling) when they are teething. Drooling beyond that may indicate that the child would benefit from an evaluation with a licensed speech-language pathologist who can determine why your child is drooling, and make recommendations as to how to help your child reduce this occurrence.
Ashley: Would you suggest an 8 year old see a speech therapist even though the speech therapists at school say he doesn’t qualify due to good grades? Th and S are made by sticking his tongue out of his mouth.
Ashley, Thank you for your question. I would suggest that this 8 year old be seen for an evaluation by a licensed speech pathologist outside of the school environment. I have had a number of children referred to my own practice when the child’s speech needs cannot be met by the school district. There can be significant consequences to the alignment of the teeth and/or to intelligibility when children use abnormal placements or productions for speech sounds. (Tove’s note: Ashley, our son also didn’t qualify for speech therapy through the school because he didn’t have any other concerns. We went to see Ms. Liz and he was back on track within weeks.)
[bctt tweet=”When is #LanguageDevelopment a concern? A #SpeechTherapist gives expert answers”]
Liz Blake has been a household name in our home since our oldest was 4 years old. Jacob developed a severe stuttering problem rather suddenly. Ms. Liz is incredibly knowledgable in the science behind children’s language development. But most importantly, it was her patience and her passion for her craft that carefully won over Jacob, and allowed her to crack the code to his fluency issue. Jacob is now what I like to call a “smooth talker” thanks to Ms. Liz and her incredibly effective ways. To this day, Jacob thinks the primary reason he went to see Ms. Liz was to play board games – and that smoothing his speech was merely secondary to our visits.
I highly recommend seeing a good speech therapist for any of your child’s language development concerns. If nothing else, getting reassurance that everything is “on track” is peace of mind worth its weight in gold.
Reach out to Lizanne Blake with any questions or to schedule a consultation.
Lizanne P. Blake, CCC-SLP
800 Village Square Crossing, Suite 120, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410
Email: lizpblake@att.net
What are your biggest language development worries?
That answer about the “r’s” was so helpful to me! I was worrying about my 3 year old but obviously I shouldn’t yet. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing!! My 4 year old, who reads on a second grade level, has trouble with /th/ and /s/, due to tongue placement. I has not affected her reading ability, but I have been wondering if its something to address now or if I should wait.
Wow – your little girl is incredible with her reading skills. From my personal experience with taking our son to see Ms. Liz at a young age I would recommend an evaluation – if nothing else than for your peace of mind. Having a professional tell you what to look for, what is developmental and even give you personalized tips of how you can help your daughter is invaluable. GOOD LUCK!
These are such great questions. I’ll have to bookmark this for later!
Wow I never considered the specifics of language problems! The only one we had was with one of my kids—he didn’t start saying a lot of words until 18 months. But suddenly he had a speech explosion! My other two didn’t go through that and spoke words on target.
My son is autistic and has some speech issues. He didn’t talk at all for a long time and even learned basic sign language until one day he just began talking and never stopped. He does still see a speech therapist because he has some trouble with pronunciation but I am just happy he is talking at all.
Thank you for sharing your sunshine story of how speech therapy worked for your son. I hope he continues to brighten your day with is words.
This is good to read as I am always worrying about how quickly my son is developing speech.