A speech delay involves difficulties pronouncing certain sounds when speaking. This may affect a child’s ability to be understood. Pronunciation difficulties are common when a child first learns how to speak. However, when articulation difficulties continue past the age when most children can correctly produce that sound, the child may need to see a speech-language pathologist to help them learn and pronounce the sound. Common pronunciation difficulties are:

• Substitutions: changing one sound to another sound (e.g., “run” produced as “wun”)
• Omissions: missing a sound (e.g., “hat” produced as “ha”)
• Distortions: producing a modified sound (e.g., /s/ produced with tongue too far forward or between the teeth, “sing” produced as “thing”)
• Additions: adding a sound within a word (e.g. “blue” produced as “buhlue”)

Our skilled speech-language pathologists will provide a thorough assessment and create a personalized treatment plan for your child to address their speech difficulties. Our therapists will work regularly with your child to teach them how to pronounce certain sounds and practice in syllables, words, phrases, and sentences until your child is able to pronounce the target sounds in everyday conversation.