If your child is tricky to understand, this could be a sign of a speech delay or disorder. There are different types of speech sound difficulties.
Articulation disorders happen when a child has trouble moving their tongue, lips and jaw to create sounds. Some children, for example, might have their tongue poke out when making a /s/ sound (known as a lisp).
Phonological disorders involve patterns of sound errors, such as leaving out sounds in words or replacing one sound with another. Some children, for example, might say “tat” instead of “cat” or “nake” instead of “snake.”
Motor Planning Disorders are less common than the above and often co-occur with other developmental difficulties and delays. MPD involves difficulty planning and sequencing speech sounds correctly and can lead to inconsistent errors in children’s speech.
The causes for these difficulties vary. Some children simply take longer to develop certain sounds, while others may have other factors impacting development such as; hearing loss, structural differences (like a cleft palate), or neurological conditions.
To help your child at home, try not to correct them, or try to get them to say the words correctly if its difficulty. The best way to help is to model the correct way to say the word a few times after they’ve made a mistake, as part of the conversation – it might look like this:
If your child is really difficult to understand, or getting close to starting school, it is helpful to seek advice from a Speech Pathologist, who can guide you in through the best ways to help your child.
