Lisping 4.5 Year Old

In Knox County there is a wonderful service called Child Development Services (Knox County CDS) 116 Tillson Ave., Rockland ME 04841, ###-###-####. They offer Screening, Evaluation, Services and Support for children from birth to knidergarten entrance. All screening is free and I believe for children age three to five services are free. At least you can have him evaluated and will have the information in hand when he heads off to Kindergarten so that the public school might be able to provide speech services beginning on day one.

Hi S.,
I am a speech pathologist working in an elementary school. Frontal lisping (when the tongue comes out the front of his mouth) is developmentally appropriate in 4 year-olds and probably wouldn't be picked up for services by a school-based clinician. Lateral lisping (when the air comes out the sides of his mouth, like Sid from Ice Age) is uncommon and should be addressed. Of course I haven't heard your son and would recommend that you have him evaluated to ease your mind. At his age (from 3-5), the public school in your area would be responsible for him and it's all free. In the meantime, I would try to correct it yourself. It's really just a matter of telling him where his tongue should be (think about where your tongue is) and show him in a mirror how to do it. For example, he should close his teeth and NOT see his tongue. From then on, just encourage him to use the "good sound" as often as possible. Once you know he can make the sound, don't accept the "lisp". For example, if he asks for "thocks" or "thoup" or a "thandwich" simply tell him you don't understand and wait for him to say it right. Most of the "therapy" should be done at home or in the preschool anyway. It's easy to get kids to make the right sound in the therapy room, but hard to get them to generalize. That part falls to the other adults (you!) in his life. Good luck and let me know how it goes.
J.

Usually by 6 or when the big teeth come in, there will be a significant decline in the lisping. The back of the baby teeth is what the tongue is now trying to touch when a z or s is being said and the tongue is now going a bit underneath those teeth and the sound of a "th" is coming out instead. When you wait for the big teeth to come in, the tongue will then hit the back of those big teeth and a "z" or "s" sound will be heard.

You can try it by saying the word lisp. Pay attention to your tongue and where it touches the back of your teeth. Now try it by placing your tongue under your front teeth, you get the "th" sound instead of the z or s sound.

I hope you can understand what I have just typed!! If not, message me and I will explain further.

Oh, it can be genetic as well. I personally would do nothing.

Hi S., I am a visiting nurse as well as a mother of three. I know from working in the field that there are speech therapists who come to the home and work with children however, like everything else it depends on your insurance coverage. You would need to call your insurance and see if it is a covered service and if so get a referral from your pediatrician. I have a close friend who's son had a similar problem and she was able to hook into the public school system and receive free treatment at the school. A bus would pick him up 2x/wk and bring him to school as well as bring him home. He received speech therapy and did wonderfully. I believe it is federal law that these services are provided to preschool children. I feel the sooner treatment is started, the easier it is to treat. I also think that once he starts school it would be easier if he does not have to leave class for therapy. Hope this helps. S. L

My 3 1/2 year old daughter appears to have the same lisp. Her father does too. I consulted her Dr. and he informed me there is a state program (in NH) that will test at any age for speech impediments free of charge. I haven't looked into it as of yet but I would imagine an easy google search should provide results.

Good luck and let me know how it turns out!

Hi S.,

I think that if you can help him with his lisp sooner than later, it would be more beneficial to him. I don't know muhc about the school benefits and therapies, but I wouldn't wait until he goes to school to get him help. If you ahve health insurance, I'm sure it will be covered if you see a specialist. Hospitals usually have programs like these. I haeva friend who takes her son to South Shore Hospital every friday to see a speech therapist beacuse he had a delay in talking. Also, not sure if anyone has looked inside your son's mouth, but maybe he has a lisp due to a tongue tie? My son had sucha hard time breastfeeding since the day he was born, and we could never figure out why he had such a hard time altching on. Well, 5 weeks in a lactation nurse said he had a tongue tie! Go figure! They said that if we clipped it he would feed better and it would prevent him from developing a lisp later on. So we did and he feeds much better than before. Anyway, if you haven't ruled that possibility out yet, I would ask your pediatrician to take a look at him and if he does in fact have one, you can go to an ear nose and throat doc to cut his frenulum (the stringy piece of skin under his tongue. Good luck S.!

E.

The best advice I can give you S. is that early intervention is key, if you can stop the lisp before he starts school, even better. Kids tend to be cruel and tease children for the littlest differences. Most states have early intervention programs that are free. You can contact your local school's special education department, they should have information on the early intervention programs available locally. As a parent you can refer them yourself, your physician should have this info too. I just had my child evaluated by one of these programs and was really impressed.
I worked in Special Ed for years and the earlier you can catch these issues the better.

S.,Your son is imperfectly perfect. Do you really want to change him?
A.

Hi S.,
I had a lisp when I was young (I remember having it in kindergarten and 1st grade). I grew out of it on my own. I don't remember having any speech therapy unless you count my sister pointing it out to me all the time. Maybe people pointing out when I did it helped me really focus on what I was saying. I have absolutely no lisp now. In fact, when I asked my mom about it, she had nearly forgotten I had one. She thinks the more time I spent with other kids helped too. Is he aware of the lisp at all? Maybe the more aware he is, the more he'll try to fix it himself.

call your local school department and they can point you in the right direction

The sooner you address this the better. The schools like won't adress this so you will have to handle privately. I am a speech therapist and could refer you to some friends who do private therapy. Though it can get pricey, with a good home program and active involvement on your part, you can probably nip this in the bud quickly. I would try to address this sooner than later. Is his tongue showing when he makes the /s/ sound?

The earlier you discover an issue, the better it is for your child. Is your child already enrolled in some program where you could get feedback from the caregivers or teachers? I had my six year old evaluated and into short term speech therapy at 3. Any program should be play-driven and fun. They told me to have her reevaluated at 5 which I did through the public school system. The rule of thumb here is if the speech isn't interfering with the child's ability to be understood, then to let it go. I've kept in touch with her kindergarten teacher and she has agreed to keep "tabs" on things for me and to take the proper steps if necessary. Get a team together - your child, yourself and his teacher or caregivers and do things in a non-threatening, nonchalant manner. If you don't like the way your child is being treated, remove him immediately from the program and ask for a meeting. Good-luck. Most of these issues resolve themselves!

The public school system has early intervention. It's great. They come test the child in their home. Now is the time to have it done. The worst that can happen is that they see the issue too and take care of it now. My nephew went through it with his speaking and only after a couple of months he was fine. I'd do it even just to make sure things are in place for when he starts school. By the way...I'm a special ed teacher.

A great deal of how well your childs needs will be met in the public school system will depend on how well suited to a child with special needs your local school is. Sadly today with the advent of no child left behind a great deal of every schools resourses seem to be focused on getting the largest percentage of their students to test well. Speaking from experience my son was at first diegnosed with adhd and I was more or less expected to deal with it outside the school. Warnings that there was dyslexia in my family and he showed signs of having difficulty processesing as well as being far behind his sisters ablity to read at the same age went unherd. When he was in 2nd grade they finally tested him but not because of any of my concerns being seen as unvalid but because that was the age where they did such things. Nothing I did or said seemed to influance them to the contrary. By this time we were facing a multiple of other issues arizing from the fact that it isnt easy to go thru several years of school wathcing everyone else easily grasp thigns you cant touch. The answer from the school usually was a shrug and the implication that their hands were tied. After several years in what I can best describe as a frustrating hurdle race I finally developed the ablity to say what needed to be said and have what I needed in wrighting to get him moved to a school that could help him better, but by this time my child had sufferd some really heavy blows to his self esteem. I would seriously not recomend on the public school system to do whats right for your child without a whip and a chair. Have an advocate allredy if you plan on going that route. If you have the resourses tho you might see better results by asking your childs pediatrition if you could get a referal for your child so that he can enter kindergarden with his first battles with it allredy won

Hi S.,
My youngest at 3 had a problem with his speech. I found out quickly that Child Development Services on Harlow St. in Bangor, Maine ###-###-#### has services available for FREE. Our state has a program that will pay for all speech therapy (even if you are covered by insurance)and it can be done in your home!! Contact your state government if you are out of Maine.
I suggest you do this as quickly as possible, before he enters school. My son is a wonderful 11 year old now and has no problem speaking in public and his self confidence is incredible. I can attribute this to the speech therapy. I know children can be very cruel and these younger formative years can affect the rest of their lives, do it before the children have a chance to make fun of him! If you wait until he is in school he will be pulled out of a regular class to go to speech therapy. This will not only take him out of the learning environment he was in & have to catch up it will also make him different from the other kids which is something he may not want to have happen.
My son's speech was more than acceptable when he entered kindergarten, but we saw many children that should have had speech therapy before they started school. It was difficult for the teacher to understand some of them and created an environment that focused on the children repeating themselves several times.
If you are not in the Bangor area, I'm sure they can let you know who to contact in the Waldo County area for assistance.
Good luck! L.

I would say leave it be. I am 43 years old and was a lisper. Between my lisp and the fact that I was the youngest girl of a family of 6 (at the time; a younger brother came later) - 3 boys & 3 girls - I got called Cindy Brady a lot in 1st grade.

I went through speech therapy as a child. That, combined with my love of singing and the theatre helped control it. However, I still lisp (and stutter, which is an entirely different topic) when I am either extremely tired, upset or agitated. Otherwise, I'm perfectly functional. :^)

I do find, however, that I tend to speak with more care around my girls (ages 5 and 3), and neither of them are real lispers.

I would seek help privately. Speech Therapy is changing in the public schools (in RI, at least) and will no longer be servicing children who only have articulation problems.