Dr. Robert Needlman
Specialist in pediatric behavior and development.
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 Ask Dr. Needlman
Problems With Pronunciation | | | QUESTION | | | | My 3 year old son has an enormous vocabulary. He speaks in complete sentences, has known his alphabet since age 2, and is beginning reading....his understanding of language seems to be pretty advanced for his age, but I am concerned about his pronunciation of certain letters. He has a hard time with the letter "r", he always pronounces it as "or". Is this something he will out-grow? — Tammy in Columbus, Ohio | | | ANSWER |
June 8, 2000 | | | It sounds like your child is bright, and completely normal. Through age four, children are just learning how to make the different consonant sounds. Sounds like p, b, and m come first.
By age three, most children have mastered k, g, d, t, and ng, among others. Harder sounds like r, ch, tch, and j, all come in later, and many normal children don't make these sounds clearly until age 5. In other words, there is every reason to believe that your son will simply grow out of his immature speech.
In a way, your son's brightness adds to his "problem." When children are developmentally advanced in one area, it's normal to expect them to be advanced in others as well. So, the fact that your son can create big, complex sentences at age 3 might make his age-appropriate pronunciation difficulties stand out.
Supposing that your son's problem does not go away in a year or two, what then? Speaking personally as someone who had trouble saying "r" sounds up until about age 8, I would say that you still have nothing to worry about.
Of all of the speech and language problems out there, a problem making one or two consonant sounds is one of the easiest to fix. With a little effort, and the help of a competent speech therapist, the prognosis for children with these problems is excellent.
— by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. |
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