D.T.
My son started speech therapy at 2.5 years. He's now 4.5. Although he's made great improvement, he'll be in speech for a few more years. We're delaying kindergarten partly because of it (summer birthday). We want to give him another year of preschool (at the elementary school in the early childhood program) to help him. I noticed last year that he was starting to get shy at preschool... he didn't like his turn at show-and-tell and things like that. We've had behavioral issues due to speech... he never learned to 'use his words' with other children because they could never understand him. He would just hit/push them instead. Now he can be understood (most the time) but he still has to be reminded constantly to 'use his words'. I'm not sure what to tell you about helping him overcome it... I made sure my son had alot of one-on-one playdates with his best friends. As his speech has improved, his shyness has started to go away. If you continue to be very supportive and loving at home I'm sure he'll turn out fine emotionally. Do the exercises at home everyday so he improves faster... the sooner he improves enough so other kids understand him better, the sooner the shyness will probably go away. And remember, even great talkers are sometimes shy... it's not exactly a bad thing as long as it doesn't interfere with him having at one or two best friends and a somewhat 'normal' school experience. He's still plenty young and has alot of time to mature.