Speech

Hi -
I also have a 3 year old girl that talks alot, but you cannot always understand her. We enrolled her in a local preschool and she is doing better, but we still made an appointment for an evaluation from our town.
I would call you school district and they can set up a formal evaluation at no cost to you. They will tell you if she needs extra help and also provide whatever help she may need, free of charge. It is a great system and she will really benefit from it. I wouldn't wait, because you don't want her to have problems when she gets to kindergarten. Also, don't listen to other people when they say, "she might be a late talker", because I did and I feel I could have done something sooner if I didn't. Also, I don't think you pediatrician will help you, because they are not trained in the area of evaluating children for speech delays, they will just tell you to call your town also for an evaluation. You are her mother and you know what is best for her, so if you are asking if there is something wrong, you must think there is.
Good Luck!
B.
You can e-mail me if you want to talk further about it.

my three year old daughter also has some speech problems, when she says c's, mostly..they come out like t's.tuptake..tandle..working in a daycare i was concerned right away, but after talking to the birth to three people, i calmed down. they gave me some excercise to do with her..but also told me not to push her too hard. if she feels like im picking on her she wont respond, they said. so every morning we do the excersises( just saying the word having her repeat it, and then having her look in the mirror to watch where my tounge is and having her "mock" what she saw.)and then if we catch her saying it wrong we correct her once, and then the next time we have her look in the mirror.birth to three is a good place to start. they work really well with the children, and they even come to you. if your daughter is in daycare, ask the director about birth t three, they should be able to get you the info.

My Son Just turned 4 in August and has speech problems, or so we thought, it was very hard for other people to understand what he said, Once he started pre-school, His speech has gotten better, They also use a mirror so the kids can watch themselves talk, and he started seeing a speech theripist, Also while he was in school they gave him a hearing test, and he failed it.
It turns out some of the reason he isn't pronoucing his words correctly is he is not hearing them correctly, He has fluid in his ears, So now we need to go see a ear, nose, throat specialist.
So he probably does have speech problems, but we can't fix the problem until we deal with his hearing first.
I would start with a hearing test though! Just in case.

I have a 3 year old son who is very similar sounding to your daughter. I would suggest talking to your Peditrician. My son has a developmental disorder which effects his speech and motor skills. I suggest getting her evaluated by a developmental peditrician with most insurance you have to get your peds approval first. I'm sure everything is fine but better safe then sorry.

Hi T.,
My daughter is 4 and she speaks very clearly but to fast so people have a hard time understanding her, My son is 9 and has always had a hard time speaking clearly he is very loud but not clear on his words so I contacted his pediatrician when he was 3 and she recomennded some speech testing that they can do to see where the problem is and when the results came back neg we waited until kindergarten where he had to see a speech therpist and every now and then has to go back to her because his speech slows down. So I recomend contacting the pediatrician and explaining your concerns to him or her and take it from there. Good Luck with everything

I'm definitely no expert, but everyone had a hard time understanding our son until he was about 5! We even had his hearing checked and it was fine....his speech has greatly improved over the course of this year. Some kids are just slower at developing their vocabulary I guess?

Every child is different, though....and I don't personally know your daughter. Maybe start with a hearing check, then go from there?

Have you had her hearing checked? My friend's little boy was not speaking well and it was because he was not hearing. He had to have tubes put in his ears. His speech has improved tremendously. Good luck.

If you ever have concerns for your daughters development, you can always contact your local elementary school and have them do an evaluation. It's free of charge and they'll let you know if you should be concerned or not. Good luck!

Oopps...now that I've read responses it looks like this has already been said! Sorry about that. I'm not so good at reading all responses sometimes! I suppose that's the time crunch you have when you have a baby in the house! hehe :)

Hi T.. All kids develop in their own time. Physically, emotionally and with speech. I have 4 girls 23, 16, 6 and soon to be 4. Every one of them spoke at different times and different clarity. My grandson who is to be 4 soon speaks a lot less clearly than my youngest (they're 18 days apart). I have a hard time understanding both of them at times but they have come a loooong way in the last yr.
If you think there may be a speech prob developing, talk to your pediatrician and she can do a quick assessment.
And if she/he feels there may be a delay, you could possibly qualify for early pre-school with speech.
My nephew has those services and in no time at all was rattling our ears off very clearly!
I still have times when it's hard to understand even my 6 y/o.
Talk to your ped. They'll give you a definite answer.
K.

i got worried when my son was 8 months old and wasn't saying anything simple. hes been in speech therapy since! if she's 3 now, i'd ask to see a speech specialst. my son still, at 8, has a hard time with saying words. it will take awhile and a lot of hard work, but eventually she will overcome it. good luck.