So I guess what I'm suggesting is, maybe you could find some speech exercises that you could play as a game with Annabel to help her practice articulation, kind of like free fun home speech therapy?
I'd like to. I'll have to do a little research and see what I can find.
ETA thanks, askye! That would be wonderful.
Maybe that is the answer to what to do - research what all these numbers mean over time. will she catch up in time - or is falling further 'behind' more likely?
Unless something changes, I think she'll catch up in time, though DH and one of his brothers had speech therapy as elementary school students because of difficulty with certain sounds. But she's definitely been making steady forward progress on all communication fronts ever since she got around to starting to talk. She was just never the kid who doesn't talk and then suddenly speaks fluently. It's been gradual, though I feel like she never had a problem with comprehension and that her vocabulary is right where it should be. The girl knows a lot. Stepping back from the part of me that says "Problem! Problem! Must fix now!", the only thing I'm really concerned about is that I think her difficulty with sound production discourages her to some degree from conversation--i.e. people don't understand her, so she gets frustrated and doesn't try. But even that has been getting better in the past few months.
Susan, I'm talking to Mom now. She asked if Annabel substitutes W for L in the beginning position -- like "wake" for "lake".
And does she say it at the end -- with wall and doll.
But she's definitely been making steady forward progress on all communication fronts ever since she got around to starting to talk
that sounds good then - so some home games and a re-evaluation and umm...patients sounds good.
She definitely substitutes it at the beginning of a word/syllable. Not sure about the end--I'll have to listen to her and see. (To some degree I don't "hear" the issue because I'm so used to how she talks--it's like adjusting for an accent after awhile.) Though, you know, I think the initial L's depend in part on what vowel sound is next. Like, I know she calls Laura Wowa and says love as wuv, but I think on lion she gets close to a correct L-sound.
And now that I think about it, her R's are much stronger than her L's. She still occasionally turns an R into a W, but not anywhere near as often.
now to whine:
I was very good. I went to the doctor and got a whole bunch of things done/tested , etc that needed to happen. including a flu and tetanus shot. I will state for the record that a tetanus shot sucks. It really hurts. Yesterday was bad, but today, I still feel bad. It is going to take me forever to clean the bathroom
I was on the phone with Mom and this is what she said.
R and S are the last sounds kids make usually, so kids aren't considered severely delayed on that until age 5 or so. R is hard because it's a vowel and constant sound, so it's tricky.
For the L sound, for right now, if she says a word with L and she says it wrong, just repeat it back. Like, if she says "Gramma lives in Awabama" say something like "That's right! She lives in Alabama." And you can do maybe get her to sing "la la la la la" with you to help her practice.
Yesterday, K-Bug was reading Bitches over my shoulder and asked me to scroll up. She asked when I changed my online name and that what I wrote didn't sound like me. I was puzzled, but scrolled up to the post in question. It was Susan W. While that is my legal first name and last initial, I had NEVER pinged on that. It made me realize I just don't self identify as Susan at all. It was a strange realization.
How funny--sorry I confused K-Bug!
