The Development of Speech

Requested by Claire of Astoria, NY "Do you have any articles on speech therapy for preschoolers?"

Some children have a hard time picking up correct speech, so what can we do?

When this question was asked, I called a friend who is a speech therapist with a local school district. Because of the vagueness of the question, she didn't want to comment too extensively. I told her the things that my husband and I had done to help our children with their speech. From this conversation I found that we had done the things that even the experts would have done with a preschooler. The things that she suggested were to:

A. Make sure the child was healthy. She said that 80% of all delayed speech is due to the child not hearing correctly due to ear infections or other health problems. If your child is having more than ten ear infections a year consider making some kind of change in doctor, medication or method of taking care of the problem. Find a doctor whom you feel comfortable communicating with. If you're not satisfied with your present doctor, find another one. One thing I've found is to have a doctor who speaks the same language as you. Understanding what the doctor is saying and meaning is a key to communicating.

B. Read to your child. If you don't have books, use the library as a source of reading material. At the library you get a big variety of books to choose from and it doesn't cost anything (just get the books back by their due date).

C. Speak to your child. Only by the child hearing speech will the child pick up speech. This seems like a very simple thing but you would be surprised how many people don't talk to their children. Begin talking to your child when they are newborns. You may not think they know what you are saying, but they are learning.

Here are the things that we did to help our children with their speech development.

We have talked, sung, and read to our children from the time that they were born. We even made up funny little songs using their names. When reading stories we have put their names in place of the character's name in the book. We have included them in our conversations from the start.

Our first child was able to pick up speech very quickly. He enunciated his words and spoke complete sentences by the time he was 18 months old, or even a little before. Around that time, my husband was taking a home course in broadcasting. He would have to listen to tapes and then repeat those things while he recorded himself. Our son would listen to all of this verbal expression and learn. We even recorded him speaking and played it back to him. These were beneficial experiences in the development of speech for our son.

Our second child had her own personality and her own language. I was the only one who could really understand what she was saying until she was about 18 months old. When she began speaking, she used the 'W' sound in place of the 'R'. We worked with her and by the time she was beginning Kindergarten she was speaking very well. As with our first child, we read to her and spoke to her constantly. She was around a lot of speaking.

Some of our other children have had small problems with their speech (like not pronouncing their 'S's' or repeating something twice when speaking). In each case we were able to correct the problem before the child went into kindergarten. We have been able to accomplish this by exposing the child to a lot of speech and giving the child a lot of opportunities to use speech. Speech, like anything, takes practice and is learned by repetition. We have tried to play word games and work with our children in a way that is, hopefully, fun. It will take a concentrated effort, for some, but taking the time to teach correct speech, especially to a pre-schooler, is certainly worth all of the effort. It is something that will be with the child all of his life.