by Julia Miller

Created on: October 25, 2008   Last Updated: October 30, 2008

My sweet daughter is in speech class right now. She is 6 years old and in the 1st grade and has speech disorders. She has the hardest time saying words that start with sh sp and sh. When she says spoon, she says "poon". Another that she has a hard time with is school. She says "cool". She has a really difficult time saying any of the sh sc or sp beginning sounds/words. The best therapy that we have learned as parents (and this sounds really strange but try it) is to stand your child in front of you and tell your child to watch your lips and your tongue. You have to go slow when you say the word and really emphasize your words, sounding out letter for letter so that they can see the way your mouth moves. If they can focus on what you are doing with your mouth and the proper placement of your lips and tongue they can begin to develop better speech. I know this for a fact with speech disorders in children. When I am in the kitchen doing dishes and I ask my daughter to repeat after me, she does, but she says it incorrectly. I say school, she says cool When I am standing face to face with her, and i s...a...y... s-c-h-o-o-l and i move my mouth and my tongue to the correct positions where they should be in order to say the word. And she says it correctly. I think it is all in how you/teacher/speech therapist show(s) your child how to use their mouth and tongue in order to say the word properly. I would also advise that if your child is having a problem with speech to please look up your speech therapist at your local school. They are there for you and your child. My daughter has an awesome lady that helps with speech therapy at her school and I have seen my daughter come so far in just one year. I do not know what causes speech problems. I think that maybe if you have older kids and they do all of the talking then maybe the younger kids catch half of what they say and say half of what they think they heard. Here is what I do know... I know their speech can get better. Just takes a little work and a little practice.

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