Normal Speech - 8 Year Old

Yes totally normal. One of mine is like this. It's almost as if she gets distracted when telling a story - she is a chatterbox too, and kind of gets sidetracked. It's like she's thinking faster than she's speaking, or else she's just thought of something while talking. Very common. Her friends are like this also. My less chatty children are not quite the same - but they would do the "and .. and ..." thing too. It seemed to peak at around your child's age too I noticed. They seemed to slow down and think before speaking a bit more as they got older.

My opinion is sort of a middle ground between "let it go" and "get a therapist" - I think that 8 is a great age to start working at home on good "public speaking" skills. It can help to develop his written skills and his critical thinking skills.

Guide your son in his storytelling. Look online for some tips. Things like: "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them". Help your son to understand the concepts of introduction and conclusion, summary, etc. When he tells you a story about something from his day at school or his thoughts/opinions on a topic, listen and then help him to "reformat" what he said.

If this is only occasional and not a problem in school, then it's probably just that your son is processing complex stories and ideas that are at a higher level than his expressive skills can keep up with.

One thing that can be very helpful is to give him your full attention, without interuption. Also, if someone in the family is a rapid speaker (as am I), it's helpful to slow down their rate of speech a bit in conversation with your son, as children can tend to mimic parents' rates of speech.

IMHO, his mind is working faster than he is speaking. I think it's just fine. Everyone is so quick to holler therapy. Doing more reading may very well help. the more you read, the more education you get on how to speak.

My 8 year old daughter does this...I think it is perfectly normal. She seems to get distracted in the middle of telling a story and then she can't remember what she was saying. Or she will tell the story wrong and then get frustrated. It's like her brain and mouth do not match up. I notice that all 7/8 year olds seem to be extremely distractible.It goes with this age.

Sounds like a comprehension thing. It does sound like something that a diagnostician should see him for.

Speech is not the same as language. Both receptive and expressive language skills are important. Your child can have no trouble with his speech, but have language deficits.

You need to get your son to a speech therapist for an evaluation. This way you can get a plan together to help him. It is extremely important for you to do this because he will not succeed in school if he isn't able to organize his brain to properly communicate.

There is a lot that you can do at home to help him, but you need to work WITH the therapist in order to do it. Therapy is just a part of it. The home program is what is most important. But you can't do it on your own. Witnessing his sessions with the speech therapist will help you. Take notes and go by her home program. Do it EVERY DAY, without fail. Even if your child doesn't like it. It's hard because the kids have to THINK. Even when it's "fun", they have to think. But the benefits are huge. When critical thinking skills are mandatory for higher learning in school, not having them will be SO hard on him.

My son had very poor speech. That was our first stumbling block. As he progressed, it became apparent that his receptive language skills were an issue. Working on receptive skills helped his expressive skills. It took a LOT of work.

Early intervention is SO important. You seem to be behind with this. Get working on this now.