All About Speech Therapy

[mango]

<p dir="auto">I am looking for ways to improve my son’s pronunciation.<br /><br />He can’t speak clearly, for example he will say ‘a’ for ask, ‘mas’ for ‘must’. When he is speaking mandarin, he will pronounce ‘gui’ as ‘dui’ etc.<br /><br />He only started to speak at the age of 3 and all along his pronunciation had been way off. His teacher did mention that they have difficulties understanding him when he first joined the kindergarten but they got used to his way of speaking after some time. <br /><br />We tot that the problem will resolve by itself as he grows older but he is going to P1 next year and there is no sign of improvement. <br /><br />any advice?</p>

[ChiefKiasu]

<p></p><blockquote><b>mango:</b><blockquote style="border:1px solid black">... We tot that the problem will resolve by itself as he grows older but he is going to P1 next year and there is no sign of improvement. <br /><br /><br />any advice?</blockquote></blockquote>I recall vaguely that buds has encountered similar cases before in her teaching career. Perhaps you can wait until our night owl wakes from her slumber to do a bit of diagnostics for you. Regardless, you might want to consider sending your son to a professional speech therapist to do proper evaluation and prognosis. I agree it is worrying if his condition extends beyond the age of 6.<p></p>

[hardworking_mom]

<p>I had similar problem with my child too. Currently he is on speech therapy with kk child development unit(cdu) at sengkang branch. A lot of prounciation deals with mouth muscle, lips and tongue movement. It is best to get professional advice as they will do an assesment using some standard test before starting on the therapy sessions. A lot of boys seem to have such problems. I was and am still worried 'cos my child, attending P1 next year will need to attend oral exam. How is he only to adapt to pri sch life if his communication skills are no good? <img src="https://forum.kiasuparents.com/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f64f.png?v=b210509bc97" class="not-responsive emoji emoji-android emoji--pray" style="height:1.4em;width:auto;vertical-align:middle" title=":pray:" alt="🙏" /> Now I will keep reminding him how to prounce clearly and correctly using those skills learnt from the therapy sessions. There will be result but takes time.</p>

[mango]

<p dir="auto">Chief and hardworking_mom,<br /><br /><br />Thanks for your reply.<br />I will call up KK to enquire abt the speech therapy.</p>

[Funz]

<p dir="auto">Go to polyclinic first to get a referral. Else they will charge you private patient rates. Diff can be as high as $100 for consultation.</p>

[kaydenbrown]

<p>Just some suggestions, this site seems to have a couple of games that could help in speech development. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.juniorsweb.com/slp/index.asp">http://www.juniorsweb.com/slp/index.asp</a><br /><br />I also thought these tongue twisters in another language might work for your child. <a href="http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/sk.htm">http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/sk.htm</a><br /><br />Certain pronunciations can be honed through another language sometimes.</p>

[buds]

<p></p><blockquote><b>mango:</b><blockquote style="border:1px solid black">I am looking for ways to improve my son's pronunciation.<br /><br />He can't speak clearly, for example he will say 'a' for ask, 'mas' for 'must'. When he is speaking mandarin, he will pronounce 'gui' as 'dui' etc.<br /><br />He only started to speak at the age of 3 and all along his pronunciation had been way off. His teacher did mention that they have difficulties understanding him when he first joined the kindergarten but they got used to his way of speaking after some time. <br /><br />We tot that the problem will resolve by itself as he grows older but he is going to P1 next year and there is no sign of improvement. <br /><br />any advice?</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><b>ChiefKiasu:</b><blockquote style="border:1px solid black"><br />I recall vaguely that buds has encountered similar cases before in her teaching career. Perhaps you can wait until our night owl wakes from her slumber to do a bit of diagnostics for you. Regardless, you might want to consider sending your son to a professional speech therapist to do proper evaluation and prognosis. I agree it is worrying if his condition extends beyond the age of 6.</blockquote></blockquote>Wuaah, your memory not bad, Chief. <img src="https://forum.kiasuparents.com/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f609.png?v=b210509bc97" class="not-responsive emoji emoji-android emoji--wink" style="height:1.4em;width:auto;vertical-align:middle" title=":wink:" alt="😉" /><br /><br />Mango, from your observation that this has<br />been going on since child is 3 years old up<br />to now coming 6 years old is kinda a long<br />wait for resolve-by-itself time-frame...<br /><br />Hope you will be able to help your child fix<br />it soonest possible! <br /><br />I've had a few experiences with children<br />with this problem. For a handful of them, we<br />managed to detect the early deficiency from<br />sounds activity and realized the child actually<br />is unable to hear sounds very clearly. To the<br />child, the sounds sounded more muffled-like,<br />and maybe could hear only the initial sounds<br />uttered by someone or something..<br /><br />Another problem could be the inborn length of<br />tongue. Short tongued kiddies may not be able<br />to pronounce some sounds clearly... Even if they<br />do, it takes up a helluva effort and at times they<br />can even speak with spitting-saliva moments just<br />to consciously correct the way they speak to match<br />the normal kid's way of speech and pronunciation...<br /><br />If your child is exposed to phonetic sounds during<br />the kindy years, try asking him/her to sound out<br />the individual letter sounds. Observe how that goes..<br /><br />Ask your child to listen for loud and soft sounds.<br />Easily done with an empty bottle filled with beans<br />or seeds and rice... Make two of each and get child<br />to match the two SAME sound bottles.<br /><br />If the chances are that child is not hearing properly,<br />(in your initial home observation) you can choose to<br />visit the ear, nose, throat specialise ie. ENT specialist.<br /><br />In some of my students' cases a minor day op was in<br />need and the use of a hearing aid until hearing ability<br />improves. <br /><br />Children who may have difficulty hearing well, may<br />speak with hollow post-nasal sounds in their noses <br />and throats... like when you pinch your nose and <br />try to speak kinda sound...<br /><br />And yes, if you think it's speech therapy that you <br />need cos you think the primary issue is really the<br />way the child speaks then go through referral for<br />better savings. <br /><br />Speech therapy may not work for all kiddies tho..<br />And i've encountered parents who find that the<br />therapy sessions carry on for a tad too long <br />without much improvements...<p></p>

[mama_mia]

<p>Hi <br /><br /><br />I am looking for a speech therapy centre for my girl, 4yrs old. <br /><br />My girl had difficulty speech language disabilty, meaning she could understand, listen, but she has difficulty to process the info. and express it out. Hence, she pretty much kept to herself when she goes to new environment, meet new ppl. etc. and also tear easily. She needs audio promter or visual promptor to help express herself. What will happen in the future when she needs to attend main stream school? She may have difficulty during oral exam, or listening comprehension. <img src="https://forum.kiasuparents.com/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f622.png?v=b210509bc97" class="not-responsive emoji emoji-android emoji--cry" style="height:1.4em;width:auto;vertical-align:middle" title=":cry:" alt="😢" /> <br /><br />She had been following up at the CDU, KKH and also Speech therapy, HPB(near to SGH). But the waiting time is simply killing! nine mths to see doc, maybe once a month to see therapy. I had looked for private therapy centre, but when the therapist had an emergency C-section, her appt. becomes irregular so we stopped.<br /><br />Now, i need to re-start the therapy session for her, so really, any good recommendation is really really appreciated. :?: <br />Thanks.</p>

[mama_mia]

<p dir="auto">Hi Mango<br /><br /><br />Have you managed to secure an appt. with KKH CDU? <br /><br />If you are pressing for an assessment for your kid, KKH’s waiting time is too long. Why i say so, because i had to wait for 6-9mths for an appt. with a doc for my kid! Subsequently have to wait for appt to see therapist, the waiting time is the killing one. <br /><br />You may want to consider private for initial assessment in parallel.</p>

[eventful]

<p dir="auto">If anyone is interested, there is an upcoming speech therapy day public forum on 1st Nov. That may answer some of your questions about speech difficulties. <img src="https://forum.kiasuparents.com/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f603.png?v=b210509bc97" class="not-responsive emoji emoji-android emoji--smiley" style="height:1.4em;width:auto;vertical-align:middle" title="=)" alt="😃" /></p>