My 5 year old can't say words that begin in L.. she always says them with a W instead of an L...?

Question

Is this ok for this age? Is there anything (other than trying to get her to say words that being in L..Thats just frustrating her and I DON'T want to frustrate her over this!) Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Any answers from speech therapists would be GOLD!!! Thanks!

Answer 1

I would love to help but i have never had kids. Heres some info to help you out though....

The tongue is generally considered the most important articulator for speech production. Tongue movements during speech production include tip elevation, grooving, and protrusion. The tongue is relatively short at birth, grow-ing longer and thinner at the tip with age.
Fairbanks in the 50's investigated differences in tongue character-istics between 30 individuals with superior articulation and 30 with inferior articulation. They found no significant differences between the two groups on measurements of maximum length of protrusion length of the tip, maximum amount of tongue face, or in the percentage of errors in duplicating tongue position.
Ankyloglossy, or "tongue-tied," are terms used to describe a restricted lingual frenum. At one time (many many years ago), it was commonly assumed that an infant or child with ankyloglossia should have his or her frenum clipped to allow greater freedom of tongue movement and better articulation of tongue tip sounds and frenectomies (clipping of the frenum of the tongue) were performed relatively frequently (Some old speech pathologist still follow this old guidelines).
However, a researcher by the name of McEnery and Gaines (1941) examined 1,000 patients with speech disorders and identified only 4 individuals with abnormally short frenums. Their most extreme case of a short frenum was a 10-year-old boy, whose only articulation error was a /w/ for /r/ substitution; the error was corrected following speech instruction. The authors recommended against surgery for ankyloglossia because of the possibility of hemorrhages, infections, and scar tissue (this may even causes the frenum even getting shorter than before surgery). It can be inferred from these data that a short frenum is only rarely the cause of an articulation problem.
Another researcher, Fletcher in 1968 (I knew him personally) examined the relationship between length of the lingual frenum and articulation. They compared two groups of sixth-grade students, 20 with limited lingual movement and 20 with greater lingual movement, and reported that subjects with restricted lingual movement scored within normal limits on a measure of articulation but tended to have more articulation errors than the group with greater lingual movement.
A short lingual frenum can restrict movement of the tongue tip. Most in-dividuals, however, acquire normal speech in spite of a short lingual frenum. If your son can touch the alveolar ridge (this is the part behind the base of the front upper incisive teeth) with the tongue tip, the length of the frenum is adequate for speech purposes AND DOES NOT REQUIRES ANY SURGERY. In the rare instance where this is not possible, surgical intervention may be necessary.
Hyertrophy of the tonsils and adenoid need special precautions. The only indications to remove this structure is medical, such as if your child had frequent throat infections and infected by streptococcus Beta Haemolyticus
with certain type.
The reason is if the soft palate is short, after surgery it will ended up with hypernasality sound post surgery because of the gap that creates after the surgery, the short soft palate cannot compensate to close it down (after tonsiloadenoidectomy there will bw a big gap in the back of the throat). These requires an endoscopic nasal evaluation befoe surgery by an ENT that specialized in voice production because of hypernasality still persist, it may lead to more and more reconstructive surgery such as pharyngoplasty etc.
Another thing is the tongue for most of the case is very flexible and is suitable for the production of proper articulation.
I believe a more conservative approach is needed before applying surgical intervention because in my experience, in most cases (almost 92% of it) can be treated with the proper phonological interventions and most of the using the Klein methode developped at the late of the 90's.

Answer 2

Weawy? Seriously though, don't worry too much. Try some simple speech exercises. It it quite possible that the child has no idea how the shape of the mouth or position of the tongue play a role in the sound of a letter. Show her your mouth while repeating LA LA LA - she needs to see the tongue touch the back of the top teeth (or the upper palate) Show her how there is no use of the tongue in saying WA WA WA. She may surprise you and say "oh I didn't know that was how you say that Mommy!" and never have another problem.

I suggest you try these types of "games" with our child to see if there is any improvement BEFORE you try school sanctioned speech therapy which may make a shy child less apt to even try. Forced therapy can be traumatizing and what purpose would that serve?

Answer 3

It's normal for her age. i'm not a speech path, but I've had several friends who's children had similar issues, and my daughter's speech path talked about it as well. It can continue up to age eight, and ST usually don't feel concerned unless it doesn't resolve itself.

If she's feeling frustrated, just make sure that you don't make it an issue, don't try to get her to say it right, just accept it for what it is. If she doesn't outgrow it in three or four years, then talk to the school about getting some help. Schools have speech pathologists that can help out.

Answer 4

My son had the same problem. Has she been evaluated by the school speech therapist? The speech therapist at my son's school told me that this is one of the speech discrepancies that usually improves with age & growth (& practice). My son had a couple other speech issues and had therapy at school and the "l" problem has resolved. She explained that this issue is easier to help a kid with because you can actually show the child where their tongue should be when they make the "l" sound. Think about it in comparison to other letters. She also said the next thing to do in addition to that is practice, practice, practice. Good Luck!!

Answer 5

My 5 year old grandson had problems with "TH" and "J". His brother's name somehow came out Dawson when he was saying Jonathan.

The school he goes to has a speech therapist. After only 6 weeks, his speech is amazing. It doesn't seem to matter how much parents tried, the professional therapist was able to work wonders.

I would suggest getting with the school to get him in a speech program.

Answer 6

It is not a an uncommon impediment in children at this age. They can "outgrow" it, but early intervention can help them work through it.
My daughter is also 5 and I found out from her Speech Therapist that generally if they are miss pronouncing one sound noticeably then they are likely mispronouncing more that the parents do not hear or have become accustomed to.
If your daughter is in school contact the school and have her evaluated by speech therapy. If she is not in school speak to you pediatrician about having her evaluated by the Early Interventions program in your area.

Answer 7

All kids do this as they hear sounds differently as they progress.in age. 5 is a little late so ask the kindergarten she goes to to test her hearing and speech. If she is not currently in a school with access to testing, make sure she is scheduled before the first grade even if you have to throw a tantrum. That is your right. It is most likely just her normal development, but you are wise to want to be sure without you frustrating her and other kids beginning to tease her.

Answer 8

Any time she misspeaks, repeat the word for her properly and continue on with the conversation. Modelling is really important, but don't intimidate her by forcing her to repeat the word a bunch of times. That would make her self conscious. Also, try getting her in a choir - a good one will work on diction and sound formation. I've had many kids come from speech to one of my choir classes and the combined effort really helps their progress. Also, if you haven't already, she should be evaluated by a pro to exclude any medical problems. Good luck!

Answer 9

My five year old does this too. We have stopped other speech problems by teaching her the correct way to form her mouth, and then making her say a word over again correctly every time we would catch her saying it wrong. So now we are doing it with "L". She can do it right but usually does it wrong first and then we correct her. She will eventually start doing it right on her own.

Answer 10

Can you get your child into speech therapy? It took a long time for the school to listen to me and get my son in and I am so glad I did. He has gotten so frustrated because of his speech and it's not that bad but it's bad enough to where he has trouble. They finally tested him and he "qualified". There is also the "scottish rite" who offers help with speech therapy problems too. They did a presentation to our ECFE group when my son was really small and were really great.

Answer 11

Are you serious? The bible is God's word or whatever and if you're saying "well don't just read that cause it won't make sense read the scholar's writing too" then you're saying the bible won't make sense and you shouldn't have to read any scholar's writing's to understand the bible. The bible is supposed to be the words to live by and if you need to further understand it with scholars writing's then you know in your heart the bible is pure crap.