GD is behind in her speech

Thanks for suggesting glue ear but I don’t that’s an issue as Dgd hasn’t suffered from ear infections and has pin sharp hearing. I have recently read about a disconnect with the brain and making muscle movements within the mouth.

Her male cousin (now aged 11) was also quite inarticulate but in a very different way as he spoke very fast indeed and fell over all his words. He’s improved immensely but even now, he’s not always easy to follow.

Your comments are greatly appreciated.

I too wondered about glue ear, which is very common and my grandson (now 4) had. He too had a large vocabulary and could hear a pin drop in another room.
However if you have spoken to your daughter so I would leave it. Nurseries are usually on the ball with development issues and it will certainly be picked up at school if there is a problem,

My GS turned 4 last June.
He's just started proper school.

I would say he became intelligible only pretty recently to all, was just family before.

My DiL is a speech therapist specialising in children.

She never saw a problem neither did the nursery.

He was a bright kid, gabbled away at everything, keen to learn.

Just give it a bit more time, at 3.5 sounds pretty well within the norm to me.

My son had hardly any vocabulary at the age of two. The health worker we saw said to send him to nursery a couple of times a week and he hated it (they made him eat cabbage). When he started school his play group pals used to tell the teacher what he was saying. As he got older people he spoke to sometimes couldn’t quite catch what he was saying and he got into the habit of speaking through me. What I didn’t understand was that, if I spoke to him on the phone his speech sounded perfectly fine. I worried about it for years and the worst part was not having those wonderful conversations with him that you have with little children. I felt as if I’d been robbed in some way and can still remember almost wanting to cry when one of his friends at play group said ‘combine harvester’ and my son could hardly say anything intelligible. He did have speech therapy for a while but I don’t think it’s easy to get that these days. And, of course, a hearing test should be done. I can’t remember when it stopped being a problem but I know I worried terribly about it for years.

Hithere

Measures will be taken if needed

With the best will in the world, if things are sorted before a child goes to school, then measures can be put in place before they get to the classroom to ensure the best outcomes. Teachers with 30 pupils to sort and SEN's with many kids have to concentrate on those with the "worst" problems as the system is crumbling and funding tight. It is much harder to get a diagnosis for ASD through the school environment as the pathway is slow whereas a child referred through the HV to Child Development Centres often move quicker and definitely concentrate on children heading for school so they are not disadvantaged.

Glad to hear about the referral. I don’t think it’s too late but sympathise (unlike others) with your concern that your granddaughter may be embarrassed poor thing. I think speech therapy a little sooner would have been good.

Good news she has been picked up and will get some help. Try not to worry, it will work out.

OP

Please do not catastrophize

She's is 4! Why would it be too late?

Measures have been taken to remediate it

Stop your anxiety cycle and step back.

UPDATE
During the last few months DGD’s vocabulary has increased immensely. Sadly her pronunciation has not. She began school in September, just 3 days after turning 4. She seems to be enjoying it but we have noticed she has become more inaudible and I suspect she has become conscious that others cannot understand what she is saying and she is embarrassed. On a positive note the school has picked up on it and referred her for speech therapy. Her day nursery were adamant that lots of children spoke unclearly. I just hope it’s not too late - I can understand her 17 month old brother better.

glammagran she sounds lovely. One of my DSs has a birthday on 31st August. Things were much more flexible then and when he started school he only did half days to begin with. He did struggle sometimes. He eventually chose to spend 3 years in 6th form, so when he went to university he was more confident and still the same age as his fellow students.

Thanks you very much later posters. Your replies are greatly appreciated. DGD’s birthday is 2 days before September so she is very likely to always be the youngest in the class.

DD said that the nursery told her this week GD saw a boy being mean to another child and she then told him “to take a deep breath and to have a think about what he was doing and to be kind” (in her own articulation).

I hope you manage to get some speech therapy but while you are waiting perhaps you could try giving her a little help in the form of games. For example her pronounciation of "Flopsy" indicates dificulties with the "f" "l" and "s"sounds. Have a day playing with one sound. S is the easiest. You can go round pretending to be snakes or angry cats and hissing everywhere. If she has real problems making the sound you know she may have a physical problem. For "f" show her your face as you make the sound and exagerrate putting your teeth over your bottom lip then just say the sound several times and move on to words that begin with "f". Do the same with"l" But always make sure it is just fun and a game. If she does it wrong don't criticise just model it again for her. Don't let her think it is anything serious just a game to fill the time.
I couldn't say "r" as a child and I remember my mum and dad teaching me to roll my rs and saying over and over "Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran"

I am so late to this that my input may not be seen, but here goes anyway. My DD is an August baby. I knew she would one of the youngest in her school year and I was worried about her slow speech development. One sound she couldn't say was S . Unfortunate as she is called Sarah. I decided that speech therapy was needed but knew that the chances of her seeing one were limited. So I approached it from the "I am worried that she may be deaf" angle. As a result she had umpteen hearing appointments, including the local university. Then got to see a speech therapist. I think it helped and was quite fun. For me the highlight was a series of pictures to teach them certain sounds. Unfortunately for them the picture of a car was a volvo estate just like ours. No way would our DD say "car", only "volvo" !! Thirty years on, my DD has a stack of high A levels and a 1st class honours degree as well as a high level job in her chosen career as a speech therapist!.
Make sure there is no physical cause for her speech such as deafness or tongue tied. Then just talk a lot with her, sing songs, learn nursery rhymes etc. When she talks, repeat what she says in a relaxed casual way as part of your conversation. Not as a " this is how to say it" way. Let time take its course. And perhaps start the ball rolling for Speech therapy. But try not to be over anxious. The worst possible thing would be for your GD to feel that her speech is "wrong" and for her to stop talking all together.

My niece's speech was like your GD's. Her beloved scooter was called 'tootie' for a long time. Her parents were very worried and had lots of speech therapy for her but it mainly resolved itself on its own in the first year or so of school.

It may be worth taking her to the dentist! I have twin GC & one used to translate for the other. Turns out he has a high palette, I think that's the word, the roof of his mouth and so was finding it hard to pronounce some words!
He's fine now, never shuts up, but speech therapy helped.

My smaller grandson couldn't say "R" properly when he was very young. (Too young to worry about therapy) so he would just leave them out.
The older one used to think up words for him to repeat.
"Say currant"....

My nephew had serious speech delays due to hearing loss. It was impossible to get anyone to help until he was close to school age. He's a young man now and speaks just fine. It took a good bit of speech therapy when he was 5.

The main thing - at this age things change so quickly.
Don't worry too much.

A friend of mine had a child with issues pronouncing the "t", he would pronounce as "f" instead

His favourite toy was a firetruck and we had a hard time in the beginning not laughing when he said than word, for his own sake.

He got over it eventually.

glammagran, they're all different - so I really wouldn't worry too much. My six year old GD still can't say words beginning with S (used SH instead) or Y (L instead) but does still manage to make herself understood. (Of course, I do try not to laugh, but lunch becomes 'Sh*t down for shandwich and logurt!')

OP

You worry about circumstances that out of your control and can do nothing about it.

Please do not make this harder than it has to be

I am quite sure that Wopwee is NOT what she actually wants to say. I’ve seen her practicing saying Flopsy but she just can’t. She has a doll she called Jasper and this is a word she pronounces clearly. She recites songs she’s learnt at nursery but more often than not we can’t understand what’s being said. She loves books and being read to and often asks questions. She remembers the words and pretends to read out loud to herself.

It’s interesting the comment about tongue tie. DD was sure her baby brother had tongue tie but GP/HV both dismissed it. As he was waking up to 15 times a night at 7 months she was referred to a paediatrician said he did indeed have a posterior tongue tie and he would have to be admitted to hospital as he was over 6 months if she wanted it done. She’s declined for now. The reason he woke so often was because he struggled to feed though he gained plenty of weight. Since eating solids and quickly having 3 meals a day he sleeps far better. He also had a very obvious dairy intolerance.

Maybe tongue tie is GD’s problem too though she didn’t struggle to feed.

Thank you Sarahmob I shall look into this.

My 5 Yr old Granddaughter too has a speech problem. Again formation of certain words. Sadly she was ref to speech therapy but due to Covid it didn't happen.
She started school in
Sept ( her nursery school years cancelled due to Covid) my DIL informed the school while they continued to chase up the Speech therapy. The school has picked it up she is in a little group with children. They were told it's a fixable problem just in the few months she's been at school, huge improvement.
Fully understand your concerns, I had them too, but she's made big leaps so far.

I do a lot of work with Speech therapists in my job as an early years teacher. We are seeing a huge number of children with delayed speech and the number grows year on year. I’ve dropped a photo of the speech sounds chart we use - you might find it helpful glammagran. The best practice at home is to practice recasting, so when your GD says something - asking for wopwee for example, say ‘let’s go and get flopsy so that she hears the word said correctly every time. If you isolate particular sounds that she’s struggling with, you could try and sit side by side looking in a mirror so that she can copy your tongue/lip positioning. Hope these quick tips help until speech therapy becomes available.

Two thoughts for you glammagran:

I've always found reciting nursery rhymes, that the children know and enjoy, in a slow exaggerated way, making a game of it, helps them listen to the individual sounds in a word and gives them time to try them out.

I've also always understood that a child's mouth and tongue shape and size aren't fully developed until the age of about eight years, so they literally can't physically say some letter sounds clearly at a younger age.