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Expert Q&A
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| By Mindy Hudon Speech and Language Pathologist | ||
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Other people have trouble understanding my 2-year-old. Should I be concerned?
Parent's usually understand their child's speech better than anyone else. This is because they're with their children most of the time and become familiar with their speech patterns. As a parent, you are also your child's BEST speech role model!
Try not to talk too fast. If you talk fast your child will probably talk fast too which may cause difficulty for him/her to be understood.
Make sure that you are talking clearly. It is important to model clear speech sounds. Try to over exaggerate sounds in words to help your child hear each sound in a word clearly. For example, "bi-G, hou-SE."
By 3, children are usually competent communicators. If your son is often difficult to understand and/or is becoming frustrated because he can't be understood, then you may want to have him evaluated by a speech and language pathologist. An evaluation may be able to provide you with specific suggestions on how best to assist your son with his particular speech sounds. For a speech and language pathologist in your area visit the American Speech-Language-Hearing Associations Web site at www.asha.org.
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