When your child is difficult for you, family, and friends, to understand, it’s stressful for everyone. You keep asking yourself, “why can’t I understand my child?” What should be a simple interaction turns into an ordeal, with your child shutting down and you feeling terrified that he or she won’t be able to communicate with you, make friends, or succeed in school. If this sounds like you, keep reading!
In the following paragraphs I’ve described the number one reason your child may be difficult to understand and what you can do to help him or her overcome it. It’s important to understand that what follows is general advice for supporting your child’s communication skills.
If your child continues to struggle or only partially improves after you implement this advice, don’t lose hope! It just means that your child needs to work with an expert who is highly trained in techniques for improving communication skills; a speech language pathologist. If you’re a Central Texas parent, you can contact us for a free consult with our speech language pathologist.
So let’s get down to it!
The most common reason you can’t understand your child…
…. is mispronunciation of speech sounds. However, the fact is that nobody comes into this world saying words perfectly. Kids need time for their pronunciation to mature and it’s common for children under the age of 3 to be quite difficult to understand, especially for strangers.
However, it’s also important to make sure that you don’t wait too long to get your child expert help if he sounds very different than peers. That’s particularly important for your child’s later success in school, since the speaking skills a child masters in the years leading up to entering Pre-K and Kindergarten greatly affect the ease with which he will learn to read and write.
So the first question you should ask yourself is whether your child’s pronunciation is keeping up with peers. Here are some general guidelines for what to expect at different ages:
· You should understand at least 50% of what she says by age 2.
· You should understand at least 75% by age 3.
· You should understand 100% of what your child says by age 4, even if not all the sounds are perfect.
· By age 6 or 7, your child should produce all sounds correctly, most of the time.
…
the first question you should ask yourself is whether your child’s pronunciation is keeping up with peers.
If your child sounds different than other kids his age, here are some things you can do to help:
· Get your child a hearing screening to make sure that your child’s hearing is normal, since abnormal hearing can affect pronunciation.
· DO sometimes (but not constantly) model words or phrases which your child has said incorrectly back to him, with your correct adult pronunciation.
· DON’T put a lot of pressure on your child to repeat the word or phrase correctly. She may not be physically able to say the word correctly yet, so give her time.
· Face your child and get on his level when you’re demonstrating correct pronunciation. Your child seeing you produce the sounds correctly and hearing your clearly because you’re close may help him.
· Point out sounds and letters when reading books together and have your child watch you say the words and sounds. Again, be cautious about requiring her to repeat after you and don’t show frustration if she still can’t repeat the sound correctly.
Keep in mind this cannot replace speech therapy…
This is just general advice for supporting good communication skills. If your child sounds very different than other kids his age or continues to struggle and is falling further and further behind peers with communication skills, you should consult a speech language pathologist directly about the best way to help. The good news is we provide parents of children in the Central Texas area a free phone consultation with a certified speech language pathologist to give you the piece of mind of knowing if what your child is going through is typical or if he or she may just need a little extra help.
Click here or call 512-582-2588 to schedule your free consult.
About the Author
In over a decade as a speech language pathologist in schools, clinics, and rehabilitation facilities, Simone Gregoire, MS, CCC-SLP has helped hundreds of kids improve their speech and trained their parents, caregivers, and teachers to support those improved skills.
Second photo, Kate, posing by Richard Leeming. Some rights reserved: license.