Five Year Old Speech: Breathing While Talking

I really don't think her breathing is related. If she's talking and needs to take a breath, she will. She might not be aware of it, but she will breath if she needs to.

There could be many reasons why she sounds nasally when she speaks. Why not just give your pediatrician's office a call and see what they have to say about it. Maybe there is a medical issue that could be resolved. It could also be a case of her not using her muscles properly. I agree that a speech therapist does so much more than simply teach articulation. It's very possible a speech therapist could be helpful here.

Rather than speculate on what could cause it, I would just call the ped's office. They really are your first goto to try and figure this out.

You don't ask a 4 year old whether she breathes when she talks. She has no idea. She really doesn't. It has no connection with whether she's smart or not.

You don't teach her to breathe.

By definition, she's exhaling when she speaks. So do you, so do I. That is how sound is made. Basic science. So do you mean she doesn't inhale often enough between sentences? Please elaborate.

If you think she has some sort of apnea or seizure disorder, you take her to the pediatrician and you don't wait for the 5 year check-up. She may need speech help, an allergist, ear-nose-throat, pulmonary help, neurology, or something else. Or nothing.

It would be great if you could take a video of her talking when she does this. It would help the doctor a lot in case she doesn't do the same thing when you happen to be in the office.

I agree with Diane in that asking a 4 year old if they are breathing while talking might lead to her saying no even if she is. So I wouldn't go on that alone (if it were me with my kids).

One of mine has had adenoids out, allergies, etc. His breathing was impacted and the way I knew was that he snored heavily while sleeping, which affected his sleep (dark bags under eyes, etc.). We saw ENT for that. He'd also had tubes in his ears.

Questions you can ask are - if a referral to ENT would be necessary/helpful and I'd let her paediatrician go from there.

I also agree with Diane on the teaching her to breathe while talking thing - I wouldn't. It's an autonomic response (breathing) - it might stress her out to get her thinking about stuff that should be happening automatically. She's obviously breathing otherwise you'd have her passing out while chatting away. If I discussed this with my kids, they'd start focussing on it and you don't really want a little one (about to start school soon) worried about this.

If I were you, I would get her to a pediatric ENT and ask for her to have a nasal endoscopy done. It sounds like to me that there is a structural issue causing this.

If there is NOT a structural issue, you should have a speech therapist do an evaluation. Perhaps it's a functional issue that speech therapy can help. Speech therapists are NOT just for fixing how words are formed. They can help how the voice works as well. And it's important to do that. Unhealthy use of the vocal chords can cause nodes and nodules on the vocal chords, and make her sound strange to others when she talks as she grows up. That can cause her awkward social situations. Early intervention can help stop this before it becomes an ingrained habit that hurts her voice, perhaps permanently.

Personally, I would not wait a few months to address this issue with a pediatrician.

Although this is not a life threatening issue there are things that can be done if she ends up having a structural issue with her the palate that is causing the nasal speech. I would recommend you start this process by seeing a speech therapist at a children's hospital.

This is one of I'm sure many possibilities of what could be causing this...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernasal_speech

(FYI...my friend's daughter had this surgery at 17 yo. She regrets not doing it sooner but they didn't know it was an actual structural problem that caused her speech issues.)

Nasally speech?
I'm guessing she's never had her adenoids out.
When our son turned 4 he had his tonsils and adenoids removed.
(They were not infected - his tonsils had swelled up till they were almost an obstruction and were interfering with his swallowing and breathing especially at night (he snored something awful) - poor kid had perpetual dark spots under his eyes).
We had them out (adenoids too - might as well get it over with at the same time) and it was the best thing we ever did.
He slept better, he could swallow and eat, better sleep meant a less grumpy kid - it was a huge win every which way around.

Speaking is something we do pretty much without thinking about it but for music (wind instruments) and/or singing - breath control is important and learning when to take a breath helps.
Speech can't be much different.
Talk to the doctor about the adenoids but playing around with breathing and singing might help her with her breath timing when speaking eventually.