Tips/Exercises To Help My Child with His Speech

If you haven't already, have his hearing tested. Tell him the correct way to say something, but do not keep on it more than once or twice, especially until you make sure that he can hear correctly. That can frustrate him and give him more serious issues, like self-esteem.

I come from raising a boy who needed tubes in / out in/ out, etc. of his ears (ages 3 - 11). That and speech classes were his saving grace. He is now an electrical engineer!

drinking out of a straw can sometimes help develop the muscles needed for speech.

My daughter had trouble with speech too. We were given a CD called Speechercise from her speech therapist. It was really goofy but very helpful to work the muscle used for speech and my daighter had fun doing the different exercises. You can find it on Amazon or at some public libraries. We also did silly things like teach her baby brother how to say his "s" sound (her brother was a newborn at the time but she didn't catch on to how silly that was).

Good Luck!

Make funny faces and sounds ALL THE TIME. Distort your lips into funny faces, especially use the tongue. Can you curl it? Flip it over? If so, try teaching him to do that.

For the /sp/ combo: When driving slowly, say "put put put put" with /short u/ sound. When speeding up, make a popping sound with your lips. For other combos, try to concentrate on how you form the words, and come up with fun sounds or games that practice that lip/tongue arrangement.

Another tip is to give him a froot loop or other kind of yummy cereal. Have him hold out his tongue with it on the tip. Have him try to put it towards each ear and up to the tip of his nose. You can make it a guessing game at first by having him stick out his tongue and close his eyes while you put the loop on his tongue. Then he has to tell you what color it is.

Best of luck!

Our speech therapist suggests eating sour things and chewy things like steak and bagels. I hope that helps

Hi A. , My 5yr old has a articulation delay and is enrolled in speech through our local school district . Have you spoken to the principal of the school your son will be attending kindergarten and voiced your concern? If he does have any delays the school should offer assistance ( No child left behind program) I also bought leapfrog phonic's cd and dvd and the kids love it . You could also try printing words your son has difficulty with and repeating them with him but using your bathroom mirror so he see's how you use your mouth . . I have sheets of S blend words , R blends ,TH blends . If your interested send me a e-mail and will talk more about it . But please contact your school district (46 right) and get him evaluated the sooner the better so he get assistance while his in class . Good luck

ARTiculate well always...Yes, repeat back in the most clear way and sometimes you can just say the syllable he is having trouble with ...make it a game and then REWARD him with smiles and hugs and extra love qwhen he tries to say it correctly....never make it a punishment or castizement or her will 'clam up' and will not talk as much....Good luck!