Your 4 year-old: Dealing with a lisp - unclear speech in playschool child

Pronunciation difficulties are still common at four. For example, is your child is still saying "torry" instead of "sorry"? Many children don't master the initial s and z sounds until age 7 or 8. Other sounds that can cause a problem: f, v, l, r, and sh. Usually the culprit is immature control of the muscles used to form sounds.

While you may think his baby speech is cute, don't say so to your child or mimic his pronunciation. He may stick to it even after he doesn't need to. Don't correct his words, either. You don't want to make him any more self-conscious than he may already be. Simply model correct speech.

Lisping occurs when children push out their tongues when forming an s instead of letting their tongue rest behind their teeth. Most children outgrow lisping eventually. But if your child's speech makes him unintelligible or prompts teasing from other children, you may want to see a speech pathologist. In general, the younger a child starts speech therapy, the better the outcome.
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