Essex Mums

So - James does really well in therapy sessions and amazes me but at home he won't do any of his sounds or work. I have lots of special games to play and make it fun but he won't do the sounds at home?

Is this common in 3 year olds?

At therapy last week he said bar (bear) and bouh (bow) and they were beautiful - I was amazed but at home he won't

Thanks

Jenn, Are they worried about this at Therapy? I wouldn't worry too much, Freddie still doesn't sound out his words properly and I have to get him to repeat them several times before I can understand them. When I spoke to the Health Visitor/Speech before they said its quite normal in boys at their age! The more you try and make him do it the more he wont!! Give him a break (and yourself) for a few days and then try again. xx

Hi Jenn, it is really common for children at this age to be reluctant to engage in homework. Especially when they find it tricky. Sometimes it takes a lot of creative thinking and sneaky work by parents to get their children involved. I would try and do the set homework, but obviously it needs to be fun in order to be generalised, which can sometimes be difficult! Maybe do it while playing a motivating game or something that gets him very excited so that he associates fun with his homework. At this age it can be simple things like saying the target sound before jumping along a hopscotch.

I wonder how you've been getting on recently?

Hi ya

We are on our break before assessment and have been given words to work on.

He is now quite happy to do sound work at home - I wonder if the trouble was more every week in therapy we worked on something new and it was too hard to go between sounds? For example one week we did f words (four, five, fay, fair) and then the next week was kiss, horse, house, purse and the next week was saw, sea, sue and then words like moo, boo, bee and me on the next week and it just jumped about too much for him and was probably too advanced for him.

So for homework we have been given a mix of words - he can say less than half of them and even those aren't clear every time.

IMHO - the majority of them (those which are not cv words) are too hard for him - I think we should start at the beginning where we practise b g b g b g over and over and p b p b p b until he can get good mouth movement and control the sound and air and then go on to ba, bi, ba, bu, ga, gi, ga gi etc instead of going straight in at bag. But then I am not trained in it so probably don't know anything.

I know each child is different with different problems and needs but James has worst speech than his brother had and his brother began with the single sounds and then worked up to cv and then cvc etc etc - he didn't go straight in with alliterated words like Dirty Doggie and Talkie turkey (which is how we spent our first week in therapy)

We get on with our speech therapy words that she has set him almost every day and we will go to our therapy assessment session and carry on with blocks of therapy but I want to make sure that the school SENCO is fully aware of James' situation and has a good relationship with the speech therapist.

It is really getting to me that he can't talk - at various groups we go to - he sounds so babyish and at such a disadvantage to everyone else and it is very upsetting and depressing.