Speech in Toddlers - Cedar Lake,IN

This is normal & nothing to worry about until she gets older. My son is 3 & still says some words wrong. Around 4 they should be able to pronouce the words more clearly. If you think it's an issue go talk to a speech theripist. They maybe able to help her talk more clearly. Most of the time my son talks jibberish.

E.,
"L" is one of the most difficult letters for a toddler to pronounce. And "K" is a close second. My son did the same thing when he was two. And we named him Leo so it was kind of cute that he called himself E O. He is five now and his pronunciation is almost perfect. Be careful about correcting her or she will not want to be a chatterbox anymore. Just say "Oh the ball is yellow". Repeat it correctly without correcting her. I'd say as long as she is conversational, I wouldn't worry.

My daughter's preschool has a small chart on the wall of expected ages for various sounds. I looked around online and found a similar chart here: http://www.iched.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=iched&a...

The list about halfway down seems to line up with the 75-95 percentiles that I saw on the preschool chart. That is: by age 7, about 75% of all children have mastered the "l" sound. So, you should be looking more closely at these: vowels, p, b, m, n, d, g, h.

The best yardstick for this tends to be watching and listening to other children. Pay attention at the park and birthday parties. Some elementary school districts and counties will offer free screening for children under five, for speech, as well as other developmental markers, in order to better prepare the child (and the school!) for when the child enters kindergarten/first grade. Check with your local grade school (perhaps the child psychologist or social worker) to start.

I am a speech therapist, or was before becoming ft sahm. You are doing the right thing by pronouncing the words correctly after she says them. Don't force her to repeat herself r and l are both difficult sounds to produce and it is considered normally developing to mispronounce several sounds at 2. It sounds like she's ahead of the curve. :-)

I agree, Ericka. My son is about to turn three in December and has a very large vocabulary for his age, but he cannot pronounce the R sound. He is just now getting the L sound. I would just make sure she here's the difference in the way you are saying it and the way she says it, and in due time, she will be pronouncing them perfectly.

I think that's totally normal. The L sound is one of the most difficult to master, so it's understandable that she hasn't quite gotten it yet. I would definitely not worry or think about speech therapy. Be glad your little girl has so much to say to you! :)

My daughter and my nephew both had problems with L sounds when they were little.... actually my daughter would still pronounce it as a "w" sound until she was 6 years old!

Here is what I did to help. I made a puppet and gave her a funny "L" name (our puppet was named "Loopity") She spoke with an exaggerated British accent and had big loops of yarn for her hair. (She was just a crudely made sock puppet!)

"Loooooooopity" would only say funny things if you tried to pronounce her name correctly. She would come out particularly at bathtime (as an added bonus) to tell you NOT to wash your toes because she LOVED to smell the toe-jam, and she LOVED wax in your ears too.... etc, etc.

It encouraged the kids to practice their L's, they saw my mouth doing big exaggerated L's, it was fun, and the reverse psychology encouraged them to wash too! :)

I would only seek help if she CANNOT pronounce an L the correct way. If she struggles and struggles and just physically CANNOT say an L, then seek some speech therapy for her, but most likely she will outgrow it. This is a common letter for that age to mispronounce.

(Both of the children I mentioned had problems with R's too, and they were also resolved at about 6 yrs old with lots of practice and reminding.)

Hope this helps!
Amanda

I just had my 3.5 year old tested for speech (he doesn't say the L sound either and some other things I was a little concerned about with his speech as maybe being a problem) and they gave me a chart of when sounds are to come. He is on track for his age they said. Developmentally, the letter L sound does not come until around age 6, and the letter R not until age 7, so no need to worry at all.

E.,
Our son is a little over two and a chatter box. It seems that he starts off pronouncing a lot of words incorrectly. He tries to mimic what he hears and does his best, but it seems to take some time.

For example, his name is Jacob and he first said it as "Ah-bub". We would just kinda correct him and say "Jaaaaay-cob". It changed to "Aaaay-bub" and now it's finally "Jacob" most of the time. Grandma was "Aah-ma", then, "Am-ma" and all of a sudden this past week it was "Gam-ma".

I don't think it's anything to worry about at this point. I know there is a way you can get a free evaluation or something and I agree that early intervention would be key if there was an issue. At this point, we just work with our son and try to make a game out of it. He loves to repeat whatever we say, so we go with it. Sometimes a bad thing for me as I've let a 'dammit' or two slip. Funny how he can say THAT clear as day the first time around! Lol.

T.

I think it's not a big deal. I noticed that my son also had problems with L only in some words. I can only guess that although it sounds like the same letter to us, it actually is a slightly different phoneme that seems different to them, depending on the vowels around it. He didn't start pronouncing "yellow" correctly (he said it "yay-yo") until he was about 3.5 - but he has an L in his name that he pronounced just fine!

My soon to be 6 year old is very articulate but still can't say the 'L' in her sister's name. Instead of Julianna, she say's Juyianna. It's normal. I wouldn't be concerned at this stage. :)

As a former preschool teacher at a private school here in Chicago, I would not worry yourself about your daughter's speech this early on. We had three and even four year olds who often missed letters in their speech or replaced them with another letter. My nephew had problems with pronouncing his L's as well. Just last year as a five year old he was calling my daughter Arexa when her name is Alexa. He's now about to turn six and says his L's perfectly. Every child is different, so your daughter might pronounce her L's sooner. At school we often had parents concerned about the speech of their child, as I would imagine would be a concern now having my own child, but as a former teacher who often dealt with these concerns I know it's something they'll likely outgrow. On the other hand, I'm not a speech therapist, so my opinion is only based off of experience working with children. Good luck!

My toddler gets speech therapy, and she also has trouble pronouncing the letter "L". The speech therapist assured me that this letter is very hard to pronounce at this age, so it is nothing alarming.

Hi E.- I have 3 little girls and 1 boy. My 6 year old daughter gets speech service for articultaion. She had fluid behind her ear drum on and off for years (not infections so tough to detect and lead to her andoids being removed) which is why the sounds she heard when developing speech were distorted. I had her tested and I am so glad, early intervention is key and having your child evaluted just gives you info to use as you deem appropriate. I saw the frustration when my child was not understood by adults and peers vanish as the articultaion improved.
Good Luck with your daughter,
B.

Most school districts screen pre schoolers for learning differeces. Call your and make an appointment. I am positive a short time with a speach therapist will help. It could rule out other issues as well. It worked for my son.

My 3 children learned to talk very early and very clear. But just because my kids could have been ahead of their peers doesn't mean that your 2-yr-old is lagging. All children learn differently. Some are visual, others are auditive, yet there are hands on, and children who learn by smelling. Your daughter may seem not to be able to pronounce clearly now but it's all too soon for you to worry. Just make sure that instead of sounding out words like her you help her sound it slowly and repeat as many times as needed. Children do learn by repetition.

My older son (3) did the same thing. It seems to be very normal. It was actually kind of sad when he started saying the words correctly. My husband and I always laugh about the way he used to say words. Enjoy it!