Treatment for children who substitute, omit, distort, or add sounds in ways that affect how clearly they're understood.
Most children mix up sounds while they're learning to talk — saying "wabbit" for "rabbit" or "wun" for "run" — and most grow out of it by age 5 or 6. When those substitutions stick around past that point, it's worth a closer look, since unclear speech can start to affect how well a child is understood, and sometimes how they're doing socially or in school.
Speech sound disorders fall into two broad types: articulation disorders, where a child has trouble physically coordinating the movements needed to produce a sound correctly, and phonological disorders, where a child can make the individual sounds just fine but has trouble organizing them correctly within words — for example, consistently dropping the same sound in the same position across many words.
Watching how a sound is made is often the first step to making it.Speech sound errors tend to fall into a few recognizable patterns.
A few factors tend to come up more often in children with speech sound disorders — though having one of these doesn't mean a child will definitely be affected.
Ear infections and hearing changes can affect how clearly a child learns sounds.We start with a full screening — listening to how a child produces sounds both on their own and in conversation, along with a quick check of mouth and facial structure — to understand exactly which sounds need work and why. From there, therapy is built around that child's specific sound errors, moving step by step: practicing a sound on its own, combining it with syllables, using it in real words, then sentences, stories, and eventually natural conversation.
Practice that feels like play helps new sounds stick.A few simple habits between sessions can reinforce what's happening in therapy.
A few relaxed minutes a day at home keeps progress going between sessions.Call, text, or fill out our form — we'll set up your free consultation within 24 hours.
