At home speech therapy resources

[Anonymous]

Anyone have any link/books/tips they would personally recommend for helping kids with pronunciation of letter sounds? DD will be 3 in May and as of late she talks up a storm and I genuinely think she’s on track (ie probably doesn’t require an evaluation and wouldn’t qualify for services yet) but she really struggles to pronounce a lot of sounds correctly and it’s breaking my heart how much she wants to tell me and how little I (or anyone else) can understand. I used to be fluent in her language but her conversational ability has exploded in the past two months and I just can’t keep up with all her unique pronunciations. She can’t say K (hard C), G, L, Sh or T and Th sounds, among other issues.

My only motivation here is how frustrated she seems when I keep guessing wrong and constantly ask her if she can show me what she’s talking about because I can’t figure how what she’s saying. I try to articulate clearly and look at her when I’m speaking so she can learn naturally but if I knew some correct methods to speed even a few of these letter sounds along for her I think it would be a huge help. Poor kid can’t even say her own name in a way that other people can understand.

[Anonymous]

Why can’t you take her somewhere?

[Anonymous]

Oh sorry I thought you meant you wanted a therapist to come to you! She sounds quite young to be worried.

[Anonymous]

Speech therapy would be useful. If insurance doesn't cover it, there are lower cost options like universities with speech clinics.

[Anonymous]

3 year olds are supposed to be like 75% intelligible to people not familiar with them. My child is the same exact age and has been in speech so I am familiar with what they are looking for at this age. Sometimes my child’s articulation isn’t great when they are talking to themselves while playing but the ST said that is ok as long as the speech is pretty clear when they are addressing me (telling me something, requesting something). Articulation can be an issue in and of itself. I would recommend getting an exam from a private therapist or doing a referral to Child Find.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Her 3 yr well check is barely two months away so of course I’ll bring it up with her pediatrician if she hasn’t made progress and request a referral for speech therapy or at least an evaluation. Right now I’m just looking for resources that people might have used on their own to casually but correctly practice the sounds.

[Anonymous]

I had my DS in speech therapy when he was a 3y.o. many years ago. He definitely had some articulation issues. He was on the younger side compared to some of the other children, but the speech therapy office said one of the key reasons to get speech therapy was if the child was showing frustration at being misunderstood. Now my DS really didn't care. We took him because we couldn't understand most of the time, but it seems like your daughter cares.
I've heard that there are apps you can use for home. Hopefully someone will be able to share the names of those with you. Our issues were before these were developed.

[Anonymous]

What does she replace those sounds with? Like, instead of k and g, does she say t and d (like saying tit when she means kick). There are plenty of sounds that a 3 year old isn't expected to have, but if it's a certain pattern/type of error earlier therapy might be recommended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Her 3 yr well check is barely two months away so of course I’ll bring it up with her pediatrician if she hasn’t made progress and request a referral for speech therapy or at least an evaluation. Right now I’m just looking for resources that people might have used on their own to casually but correctly practice the sounds.

The longer you wait the harder it is to correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Her 3 yr well check is barely two months away so of course I’ll bring it up with her pediatrician if she hasn’t made progress and request a referral for speech therapy or at least an evaluation. Right now I’m just looking for resources that people might have used on their own to casually but correctly practice the sounds.

The longer you wait the harder it is to correct.

Omg, are you people this annoying in real life? She’s not even 3 yet. Two months ago she was mostly talking in 3-4 word sentences and everything was very contextual. She’s like a different person now with long, complex sentences and spontaneous thoughts (ie words with no context clues from what we’re currently doing.) If I posted about getting her in speech therapy you’d all be up my ass telling me I was a crazy anxious FTM trying to rush normal development. Right now she isn’t behind and no expert would say to bring her in. I’m simply wanting to help things along a bit for her sake and to give me more to report at her 3 yr if we’ve been actively practicing sounds and she’s still struggling. I’m on top of this. Right now I’m trying to find reliable online resources for methods to teach the missing sounds that a parent can do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Her 3 yr well check is barely two months away so of course I’ll bring it up with her pediatrician if she hasn’t made progress and request a referral for speech therapy or at least an evaluation. Right now I’m just looking for resources that people might have used on their own to casually but correctly practice the sounds.

The longer you wait the harder it is to correct.

Omg, are you people this annoying in real life? She’s not even 3 yet. Two months ago she was mostly talking in 3-4 word sentences and everything was very contextual. She’s like a different person now with long, complex sentences and spontaneous thoughts (ie words with no context clues from what we’re currently doing.) If I posted about getting her in speech therapy you’d all be up my ass telling me I was a crazy anxious FTM trying to rush normal development. Right now she isn’t behind and no expert would say to bring her in. I’m simply wanting to help things along a bit for her sake and to give me more to report at her 3 yr if we’ve been actively practicing sounds and she’s still struggling. I’m on top of this. Right now I’m trying to find reliable online resources for methods to teach the missing sounds that a parent can do.

You can't find reliable online as you need the face to face and someone correcting what she is doing and teaching her. If it was that easy for you to do, she wouldn't have articulation issues. My child was in speech therapy for years. No one is telling you what you are saying and you are making up stuff to justify not getting your daughter help. There is a method to it all. The younger you fix those things the easier it is on her. The longer you let her do the incorrect pronunciations the harder it is to correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does she replace those sounds with? Like, instead of k and g, does she say t and d (like saying tit when she means kick). There are plenty of sounds that a 3 year old isn't expected to have, but if it's a certain pattern/type of error earlier therapy might be recommended.

Yes, K sounds like very soft T or D and G sounds like D as well. From what I’ve researched this is the normal pattern of learning to pronounce sounds. When she turned 2 she could still only say “dah” for grandma but before 2.5 it became “damma” and it’s stayed there since. Clothes or close (as in the door) both sound like “doze” I cleaned the playroom up after bed last night and she saw it this morning and came to me and said “mommy, I need my ball pit back! Where you put it?” and it was clear as day like a 5 year old said it (minus the missing verb.) But sentences with lots of K, G, L, T or Th at the beginning of words are unintelligible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does she replace those sounds with? Like, instead of k and g, does she say t and d (like saying tit when she means kick). There are plenty of sounds that a 3 year old isn't expected to have, but if it's a certain pattern/type of error earlier therapy might be recommended.

Yes, K sounds like very soft T or D and G sounds like D as well. From what I’ve researched this is the normal pattern of learning to pronounce sounds. When she turned 2 she could still only say “dah” for grandma but before 2.5 it became “damma” and it’s stayed there since. Clothes or close (as in the door) both sound like “doze” I cleaned the playroom up after bed last night and she saw it this morning and came to me and said “mommy, I need my ball pit back! Where you put it?” and it was clear as day like a 5 year old said it (minus the missing verb.) But sentences with lots of K, G, L, T or Th at the beginning of words are unintelligible.

This is a good resource for norms for these kind of errors (the 2 you mention are fronting and cluster reduction - both age appropriate). If she can do them sometimes, they could be emerging which is a good sign that it'll self correct.

What does she replace the L, T, and TH with?

https://www.speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31:table3&catid=11:admin&Itemid=117

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have any link/books/tips they would personally recommend for helping kids with pronunciation of letter sounds? DD will be 3 in May and as of late she talks up a storm and I genuinely think she’s on track (ie probably doesn’t require an evaluation and wouldn’t qualify for services yet) but she really struggles to pronounce a lot of sounds correctly and it’s breaking my heart how much she wants to tell me and how little I (or anyone else) can understand. I used to be fluent in her language but her conversational ability has exploded in the past two months and I just can’t keep up with all her unique pronunciations. She can’t say K (hard C), G, L, Sh or T and Th sounds, among other issues.

My only motivation here is how frustrated she seems when I keep guessing wrong and constantly ask her if she can show me what she’s talking about because I can’t figure how what she’s saying. I try to articulate clearly and look at her when I’m speaking so she can learn naturally but if I knew some correct methods to speed even a few of these letter sounds along for her I think it would be a huge help. Poor kid can’t even say her own name in a way that other people can understand.

She’s on target:
http://www.specialkidstn.com/therapyandnursingblog/2017/7/27/typical-articulation-development

But if she’s continually frustrated or you need to “translate” for other other people, call early intervention now. Or get her screened by childfind after May.