Lisping | Imamother

Motek

Wed, May 25 2005, 5:11 pm

I ran my theory by a speech therapist -

my theory is that when children are first starting to talk, and they lisp the letter 's' and say "th' instead, that they should be corrected and shown how to say it right (repeatedly and nicely), because by not correcting them, they will keep on saying it wrong and the more time goes by, the more times they will mispronounce it, and the habit gets more and more engrained, making it harder and harder to undo

I don't see my niece that often, but when I saw her, years ago, I explained to her (she was somewhere between 5-9, I don't remember what age) that some words are "s' words, like "sun," and "snake" and some words are "th" words like "think" and "throw".

I was delighted when a long time later it suddenly dawned on me, that she was speaking perfectly!

the speech therapist said she agreed with me as long as it was done in a pleasant manner (and she probably also said, if it was typical lisping, not an actual physical problem with the mouth, tongue etc.)

anybody else with theories/ideas about lisping?

Tefila

Wed, May 25 2005, 6:17 pm

I don't know but my fourth son had this problem till age 6, and b"h now it's no problem. I thought it was normal and cute then Wink

Rochel Leah

Wed, May 25 2005, 7:39 pm

Motek I think that iw what one should do in all cases if a word isnt pronounced correctly. if by 3-4 years old a child isnt saying a certain word correctly one should correct it a pleasant way.

Motek

Fri, May 27 2005, 12:04 pm

Rochel Leah wrote:

if by 3-4 years old a child isnt saying a certain word correctly one should correct it a pleasant way.

I think 3-4 is way too late if the child has been mispronouncing it from age one or two

freilich - it just stopped on its own?

Last edited by Motek on Sun, May 29 2005, 5:54 pm; edited 1 time in total

Tefila

Fri, May 27 2005, 2:07 pm

Well not exactly Motek, but we/ I gently corrected him when he spoke! Wink

proudmom

Sun, Jul 03 2005, 8:04 pm

Motek wrote:

Rochel Leah wrote:

if by 3-4 years old a child isnt saying a certain word correctly one should correct it a pleasant way.

I think 3-4 is way too late if the child has been mispronouncing it from age one or two

I dont think so. My daughter is 4 years old and she still has a problem pronouncing words. my husband and I correct her and she works on it and she gets better and better at it.

Motek

Sun, Jul 03 2005, 8:18 pm

I had meant it's late to start at 3-4 when the child has been mispronouncing it for years.

Motek

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 5:13 pm

I read the following:

"If we perform a skill wrong, we should immediately correct it! Why is this so important?

When acquiring new skills, we train new neural pathways and motor responses. Every time we use the same neural pathway and motor response, we stabilize and reinforce it whether it's right or not."

Why wait to help a child when he's mispronounced the sound thousands of times? That's a shame!

Clarissa

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 5:18 pm

My toddler has been lisping a little. He started speaking late (he's getting therapy), so we haven't been correcting him because any words are good words around here. Lately, I am wondering if I should be concerned. His therapists say no, he's just really started speaking, and he's not expected to fine-tune anything yet. So I'm keeping my mouth closed about that, even though I'm a grammar nut and often correct my children when they make an obvious grammatical error. It's how I was raised. So he'll grow up with a lisp, but he'll know when to use I or me correctly.

By the way, I had speech therapy in elementary school when I was a kid, and hated it. I'd much rather have had my minor problem fixed when I was much younger.

mumoo

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 5:53 pm

the key is correcting pleasantly and that may not be as easy as one thinks. if a child, new to speaking, is corrected too much (and what is too much is his opinion, not ours) he may decide it is too much trouble or ch'v painful to speak.
we may think we are pleasant, but impatience, intolerance and just having a bad day affect how we might appear to young children

whatever

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 6:03 pm

my son lisps too, I've noticed that instead of his tounge sticking out straight it goes to the side.
does he need therapy?

Twizzlers

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 8:04 pm

I asked our speech therapist the same thing cuz my 2 year old lisps. She said he is too young to understand how to correct it, and I should wait till he's older. Scratching Head

Lechatchila Ariber

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 9:00 pm

for "th"- stick your toungue out, bite gently and blow

Israelis also have this issue when speaking english

mumsy23

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 9:22 pm

Twizzlers wrote:

I asked our speech therapist the same thing cuz my 2 year old lisps. She said he is too young to understand how to correct it, and I should wait till he's older. Scratching Head

Your speech therapist is right. Many "mispronunciations" are actually typical in children age 1-4 and need no correction. I understand what you are saying, motek, about wrong habits being ingrained the more they happen, however this is not true with speech development. Children acquire language a certain way and part of it is mispronouncing words. As they get older they shape their speech to sound more like adult speech and at a certain age all the sounds and words are supposed to be pronounced correctly. If at that point they are not, then we work on it.

This was taken from http://members.tripod.com/Caro......html

"All children make predictable pronunciation errors (not really 'errors' at all, when you stop to think about it) when they are learning to talk like adults. These 'errors' are called phonological processes, or phonological deviations. "

This same website has a table of when sounds are expected to come in in typically developing children. sounds such as /s/, /r/ and /th/ can come in as late as 6 years old and still not be considered problematic.

Children under 3 are too young to work on articulation and typically a therapist would never recommend any kind of articulation remediation at such a young age.

of course, if you correct your own child, in a pleasant way then I don't see how it can hurt.

Motek

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 9:28 pm

mumsy23 wrote:

I understand what you are saying, motek, about wrong habits being ingrained the more they happen, however this is not true with speech development. Children acquire language a certain way and part of it is mispronouncing words. As they get older they shape their speech to sound more like adult speech and at a certain age all the sounds and words are supposed to be pronounced correctly. If at that point they are not, then we work on it.

And at that point, they've said it a zillion times and have to work on undoing the habit. And there are plenty of adults who still pronounce things wrong and it doesn't sound good ... To each her own.

Mimisinger

Sun, Sep 07 2008, 9:29 pm

I don't think gently correcting a child with this necessarily will work. It depends on the reason they are lisping. Can they say the sound correctly? There's also a difference between whether the s is at the beginning or the end of the word.

Ds lisps the s and is getting speech, but correcting him wouldn't help, because he physically can't do it. He has to do exercises with straws and horns and bubbles, etc. to strengthen his cheek muscles and teach him to round his lips when blowing, as he doesn't do that either.

I can correct him all day, but what's the point? He can't do it. It's like correcting someone with a limp, how is gentle correcting going to help someone who can't walk properly? It doesn't.

mumsy23

Mon, Sep 08 2008, 12:04 am

Motek wrote:

mumsy23 wrote:

Actually, it is not "to each his own." We are talking about a theory of development that is very well established among experts such as speech therapists. Children naturally mispronounce things and most of them grow out of it and eventually pronounce everything correctly.

pina colada

Mon, Sep 08 2008, 12:14 am

there are certain sounds that not all children develop the ability to say until they are 4, 5, or 6. I work in the field of child development and was concerned when my daughter at 3 or 4 was unable to say certain sounds such as ch or j. I discussed this with a speech therapist and she showed me on her charts that it was normal at my daughter's age. My daughter did aquire the sounds age appropriately on her own with no intervention. Lisping does not need to be addressed until the child is 6 as it may take until that age for a child to develop the ability to say the s sound. Best of luck!

Tamiri

Mon, Sep 08 2008, 2:56 am

Motek wrote:

I had meant it's late to start at 3-4 when the child has been mispronouncing it for years.

Nah, our second thon lithped till he wath about 5. We corrected it then (tucked his tongue in when it popped out), at home and have not had a problem thinth. We made videos of him speaking with a lisp, it was so cute!

anon

Mon, Sep 08 2008, 10:38 am

Motek wrote:

You cannot apply this concept to the acquisition of speech sounds. It is an inappropriate use of this quote. You can give your personal opinion, but you can't use professional quotes to back up your opinion because it doesn't exist.

Children acquire all skills slowly and gradually, speech skills being no exception. ALL children simplify the adult form of langauge when learning to speak because the adult form is too difficult for them to produce. That's why "ball" starts out as "ba" or "rabbit" starts out as "wabbit". The /s/ is a LATER DEVELOPING sound, meaning that when 1 or 2 year olds starts to talk, it is NORMAL that they have trouble producing it. They may commonly substitute the /s/ with a /t/ (so "sink" becomes "tink") or they may substitute it with a /th/, which to our ears sounds like a lisp. Even for those children who don't produce a full frontal lisp when producing the /s/, the sound is probably somewhat deviated. It would be inappropriate to correct a 2 year old's /s/ sound, considering his developmental level. And if you don't agree, then why stop at /s/? Why not correct the 2 year old when he says "wabbit" instead of "rabbit" or "dat" instead of "that"?

If you're worried about stopping a bad habit before it gets too strong, it's relevant to understand that 4 years old is considered a very young age to work on the /s/....it's an age where it would be considered "nipping it in the bud". NO therapist would recommend working on articulation before 3 (unless they are worried about issues that are not typical, such as apraxia), and even 3 is often considered too young.

And for a personal opinion, I think it's terrible to unnecessarily correct a child. As parents, we are ALWAYS correcting our children because there are so many things that they need to be taught. "Don't hit, don't throw your food, don't steal Shimmy's toy, you didn't eat enough food on your plate, don't jump on the couch, don't color on the walls, don't rip your books, don't take your bib off when you're eating, no you cannot have all the cookies-just take one....does the list every end??!!

I would think that, at the very least, kids should be given a break and not corrected when they're being completely appropriate by speaking age-appropriately!