What to do about poor grammar when speaking (my almost 6 year old)

[beth83]

It is getting quite uncomfortable for me to hear my five, almost 6 year old speak.  I just can't figure out what we did wrong, what the problem is, or even how to address it all.

 

You know when kids are little and they mix up tense of common words?  They say your child will eventually outgrow this, but my daughter never has.  We do everything they suggest... use proper grammar around her, read a lot, and she even has her nose in a book most of the time and reads independently around a 3rd grade level.  

 

And don't get me started on MINES vs MINE.  About 10 times a day, I have to correct her that it isn't "It is mines."  I mean, seriously?  I'm about to lose my mind.

 

I think she also has some kind of language disorder.  She really doesn't speak clearly and people often have a hard time understanding her.  I would say this is a separate issue, but maybe it is all connected?

 

I tutor her class at Classical Conversations which is full of kids born within 6 months of her.  It has become very obvious to me that she is behind.  They all speak properly and clearly.  Anytime she gives her presentation it is PAINFUL to me!  Between her poor grammar and her speech issues, she is a mess.  When she finished yesterday, a couple of kids said they couldn't understand anything she said.  

 

"She will outgrow it" just doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore, especially when I don't see any other kids her age STILL talking like a 3 year old.  The 3 year olds I know don't even speak that poorly.

 

Any advice?

 

 

 

[SKL]

Have you had her evaluated for speech/language disorders?  Does she also seem to have auditory processing issues?

 

Neither of my kids uses perfect grammar.  They are 7 and they still make some mistakes such as trying to make an irregular verb regular.  And my 7yo is just now starting to enunciate "r" properly.  I don't think it's completely outside the range of normal for an almost-six-year-old to make both grammar and pronunciation mistakes.  But I would probably get her checked anyway if she is having so much trouble that she can't be understood.

 

If she doesn't have any diagnosable issues, why not start teaching her the grammar rules that she's breaking?  Find some books or worksheets that focus on that particular skill, or have her practice writing and speaking the various forms of irregular verbs etc.  Maybe once she understands that it is a "rule" she will make a conscious effort to use the right words?

 

For diction, I have required my kids (while just with family) to repeat themselves more clearly until they are actually communicating.  When they are focused on diction they sound a lot better.  For presentation prep, I remind them that they need to make sure their audience can understand them.  Is your daughter able to speak clearly when she specifically tries to?

[Laura Corin]

Has she had her hearing tested?

 

L

[Acorn]

My dd worked on this with a speech therapist.  She started with articulation delays.  Once she had mastered enough sounds we could clearly understand her speech, her grammar was very behind.

[athomeontheprairie]

I would find a speech language therapist. here they are free, and are through the public school system, but you need a referral from your doctor, if your kids aren't in school, but it's not a big deal.

[Laura Corin]

I would find a speech language therapist. here they are free, and are through the public school system, but you need a referral from your doctor, if your kids aren't in school, but it's not a big deal.

 

FWIW, Hobbes' speech therapists in Hong Kong and Scotland wanted a hearing test done before they would even see him.

 

L

[beth83]

Have you had her evaluated for speech/language disorders?  Does she also seem to have auditory processing issues?

 

Neither of my kids uses perfect grammar.  They are 7 and they still make some mistakes such as trying to make an irregular verb regular.  And my 7yo is just now starting to enunciate "r" properly.  I don't think it's completely outside the range of normal for an almost-six-year-old to make both grammar and pronunciation mistakes.  But I would probably get her checked anyway if she is having so much trouble that she can't be understood.

 

If she doesn't have any diagnosable issues, why not start teaching her the grammar rules that she's breaking?  Find some books or worksheets that focus on that particular skill, or have her practice writing and speaking the various forms of irregular verbs etc.  Maybe once she understands that it is a "rule" she will make a conscious effort to use the right words?

 

For diction, I have required my kids (while just with family) to repeat themselves more clearly until they are actually communicating.  When they are focused on diction they sound a lot better.  For presentation prep, I remind them that they need to make sure their audience can understand them.  Is your daughter able to speak clearly when she specifically tries to?

She has been evaluated for speech issues.  A friend's mom recently evaluated her and said that the sounds she is making incorrectly she should outgrow, but if she is still having problems by 7 then we need to seek help.  She was going slow with her and asking for her to pronunciate the words. I think she has more of a problem with every day speaking, though, if that makes sense.  I'm not sure if our friend was looking for processing disorders.

 

I have often thought about teaching verb tenses with her, but I keep telling myself she is too young.  She began reading early, around 3.5, and I really think that to improved her speech more than earlier speech therapy sessions.  When she could see the words written out, she understood more what sounds she needed to say.  I guess grammar would be good to start.

 

Has she had her hearing tested?

 

L

She has and they say there isn't any kind of hearing problem.

[SKL]

My advanced daughter sometimes enunciates very poorly.  I tell her she sounds like her mouth is full of marbles.  Other times she enunciates very well.  She doesn't seem to have any particular issue that I can pinpoint.  But she does a lot better when I specifically ask her to "enunciate!"

[Farrar]

My boys lagged a bit behind in this (perhaps not as far as your dd, but still behind) and starting around age 6, I just started correcting them and making them restate everything.  But not all at once.  I would pick a few things, work on them until they got it, move on to something else.  They're 9 now.  I still have to correct a lot of took/take/taken mistakes and a few other things, but mostly it has gotten better.  And I'll add we started by talking about this and why it was important.  I got some pushback, but not too, too much.  Better now than later.

[Kevin'sMom]

My advice is to give her more time, and to encourage her to talk without correcting her speech when she makes an error. My model for this is my two adopted children, both adopted (34 years apart) at the age of 4. My daughter spoke smatterings of Greek, Spanish, and English. My son could not speak at all, except to say "chocky mik." She is 38, with college degrees and a very fine mind and vocabulary. He is 10 and the one I am homeschooling, not because he is behind, but because he is so far ahead of his class. Talk, read, talk more, read more, and soon she will correct herself.

[Paige]

Has there been any sort of gradual improvement in her grammar? As long as her grammar and enunciation is improving every year, I still think she's within the normal range. My girls were also in speech when they were young and my mom was always nagging me about my DS's speech and grammar when he was 5. I thought he was fine, but asked the girls' speech therapist and he said it was not a concern at all until he was past 7. For my DS, I think the issue was that he was an early talker and used more words and more complex sentences than the average child at that age. With more talking, he had more opportunities to mess up. He also had an undiagnosed hearing problem, and today I can see the effects in his speech with not so much incorrect grammar like you'd hear in a younger child, but just weird phrasing every now and then that you don't normally hear in little kids.

 

So what if the other kids are ahead of her? It's a range and she may be on the lower end but it doesn't make it a problem. She's on the higher end for reading so it balances out. I would work on one thing at a time by gently and casually correcting her each time but letting the rest of it go. If the "mines" bothers you, work on that first. I think if you work on too much at once, kids get frustrated and quit listening.

[beth83]

If she were my child I would have her evaluated, formally, by a professional. I'm all for letting them grow out of it, but given your concerns I wouldn't wait any longer. My dd had speech therapy from ages 3 to 3 1/2 and it's amazing how much the therapist helped her. I wish I had pursued it sooner than I did. I also agree to seek a hearing eval, and not the screening one at the pediatrician's but one by an audiologist. Has she had lots of ear infections? My dd's problem, I think, was that she had lots of ear infections at the 12-18 month old range, and couldn't hear well, even though she passed the screenings--perhaps she didn't have the fluid in her ears at that time, but had it at other times. She got tubes in her ears and then later it became obvious that there was a problem

 

She had no ear infections growing up and she was evaluated by a certified audiologist at an ENT.  No problems there.

 

I'm thinking we need to go back to the speech pathologist.  This will be our fourth round seeing them, though.  I don't think they did anything at 18 months when the first pediatrician told us to go.  The second time, at 3 years was a HUGE waste of money.  The highly recommended practice told me they would first need to work on her attention span until they could actually work on her speech. (Her attention span, at that time, was longer than most kids her age.)  I wasn't going to pay for 6 months of nothing when they could easily be helping her then.  The last one we saw about 6 months ago told me that she would outgrow all of her problems by 7 and to not seek help until then.  Hmmm....

[Acorn]

Did your report from the last evaluation show the break down for various segments of the evaluation test?  Some articulation sounds like "r" and "th" (maybe some "s") are still under development until age 7.  In addition to various articulation delays, my dd scored below normal for phonemic awareness.  So while she physically couldn't make some sounds, her brain also couldn't hear some sounds, even with perfect hearing tests.  I had incorrectly thought that by adults and literature modeling proper grammar usage, my dd would just absorb it like my older child.  Her language development has had its own individual path.  We took pediatrician's advice to wait and then once it was agreed that we were looking at speech disorders, it was frustrating to have long wait times at both private and public school facilities. 

[RootAnn]

If you want to do something now, why not have her read outloud to you for a few minutes everyday? (For example, you read a page of whatever book she's reading (or you are reading to her) and then she reads a page to you.) If she says something wrong, ask her to read it again (or correct her but don't have her read it again - whichever one is less annoying for her). When I've done this with my kids, I had one ask me to tap her arm when she said something wrong so I wasn't interrupting her but so she'd know she had to stop & look for her mistake. The other one just wanted me to point to the word, say it correctly, and let her move on.

 

This helped with enunciating things correctly and allowed them to SEE & HEAR the grammar correctly. I have some kids that are very auditory (dd#2) and some that are visual (like me!). Not all of us can pick things up just by hearing them (from read alouds or people speaking around us). 

 

And my still-learning-to-read-6 yr old was driving dh & I crazy with his speech patterns at 5 yrs old. He's SO MUCH better now. (He still makes some mistakes, but they aren't as frequent or annoying obvious as before.)

[Tracy]

Regardless of what speech errors she is making, the fact that she is not intelligible should make her eligible for speech services.  Have her officially evaluated so that you can get services for her ASAP.  The longer she is making those errors, the harder it will be to fix.  

[Rosie_0801]

Poetry memorisation and recital helped my daughter with articulation. We focused on nursery rhymes. Her grammar is still atrocious, but she seems unable to learn it any faster so I have nothing to recommend there.

[redsquirrel]

Not seeing her until she had an attention span?  My son was getting speech therapy at 16 months. Any SLP who works with kids is used to dealing with kid sized attention spans. That just doesn't make sense to me. .

 

Are you having to 'translate' your daughters speech for people who don't know her? Even a little bit? If she is talking about a subject that the listener would find 'unfamiliar' (has no immediate frame of reference) would the listener know what she is saying? What if that listener is an unfamiliar listener?

 

Record her speaking in a natural way. Have her tell you a story and (if you have one) use your phone.

 

Keep notes about the mistakes she makes and bring them to the therapist. Have you done any research yourself about normal speech development/grammatical errors?

 

Are you in the US? because you shouldn't have to pay for an evaluation with a speech therapist. At her current age it can be done through the school district. And when she was three she was eligible for Early Intervention, also free.

[Serenade]

Poetry memorisation and recital helped my daughter with articulation. We focused on nursery rhymes. Her grammar is still atrocious, but she seems unable to learn it any faster so I have nothing to recommend there.

 

 

My son with enunciation & phonemic awareness problems was greatly helped by memorizing the poetry in First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind.   It is easy and gentle, and builds confidence, too.  

[Melissa in Australia]

hope you can find a good speech pathologist

 

 

 

 

would an intensive phonics program help?

[NASDAQ]

My older son was the same way. I was utterly shocked when he aced (absolutely aced) the grammar part of his speech evaluation. He's been getting better with time. Summer camp also helped.

 

You need someone to do a speech _and language_ evaluation. It sounds like maybe you didn't get the right speech therapist.

 

Don't correct her ten times a day. It doesn't help.

[beth83]

Poetry memorisation and recital helped my daughter with articulation. We focused on nursery rhymes. Her grammar is still atrocious, but she seems unable to learn it any faster so I have nothing to recommend there.

 

I love this idea.  Thank you!

[sunnyday]

You need someone to do a speech _and language_ evaluation. It sounds like maybe you didn't get the right speech therapist.

 

 

This. I didn't understand the difference between speech and language until I asked my aunt (who's written a book about language delays and disorders) about my son's mild stutter. She explained that speech/articulation/ability to make speech sounds isn't really her thing -- she studies language/making meaningful utterances. For example, her colleague she conferred with specializes in "disfluency"; she specializes in dialects like Black English and in developmental delays. Her book is fascinating, with case studies from children who needed help to understand sentences with modifiers in them or to construct sentences with verb tense changes or who naturally dropped or altered certain verbs in a predictable pattern and needed to be taught "school English" almost as a second language.

 

That said, I didn't even bother correcting my son for saying "her" where he should say "she" or for incorrectly conjugating irregulars until he turned 7. He's receptive now, and I don't nag a lot, and he's making progress (voluntarily restating his sentence at an eyebrow-raise). DD has picked up the "her" thing from him, but since she's barely 5 I just restate her sentences with a little emphasis and move on. "Her thought her had a hat on!" "Oh my gosh, SHE thought SHE had a hat on? That's so silly!"

 

Reading, especially reading out loud to me, has helped both of them, and DS is ripe for actual grammar instruction too, which I think will be perfect for him. However, I still haven't ruled out the speech/language eval for my kids either.

[SKL]

Coincidentally, today I just corrected my 7yo second-grader for saying "mine's."  LOL.

[Tracy]

That said, I didn't even bother correcting my son for saying "her" where he should say "she" or for incorrectly conjugating irregulars until he turned 7. He's receptive now, and I don't nag a lot, and he's making progress (voluntarily restating his sentence at an eyebrow-raise). DD has picked up the "her" thing from him, but since she's barely 5 I just restate her sentences with a little emphasis and move on. "Her thought her had a hat on!" "Oh my gosh, SHE thought SHE had a hat on? That's so silly!"

 

 

This is the very first thing that our speech therapist trained us to do.  The worst thing you can do is to correct your child or make them repeat something correctly.  Our role was to model the correct sentence without pointing out that it was wrong or making the child say it right.  

[Rosie_0801]

This is the very first thing that our speech therapist trained us to do.  The worst thing you can do is to correct your child or make them repeat something correctly.  Our role was to model the correct sentence without pointing out that it was wrong or making the child say it right.  

 

Maybe it depends on the child, because that's not a bad thing for my daughter. With her, I have her repeat it until she gets it right. It's almost like listening to a synapse form to deal with that word or phrase. I don't do it all the time about everything though. That'd be a horrible nag.

[MistyMountain]

I would go somewhere else for a speech evaluation. Who did you see? Was it private or through the school? My son is getting speech for articulation and they went by how much someone who didn't know him could understand him. Do other people usually understand her?

[PeterPan]

Beth, I'll just toss something out for you, while I'm here bumping threads to cover the spam.  Intelligibility issues with a dc can be remnants of verbal apraxia.  Apraxia is an issue of praxis, motor control, and it can be mild, moderate, or severe.  It's not readily diagnosed by a non-expert in it and it's even harder to treat.  You might do some reading on it and look into PROMPT.  At least a PROMPT therapist won't blow you off or tell you she has an attention problem.  ;)  The PROMPT Institute has a provider locator.  If you call or email them, the therapists will talk with you.  I would not go back to the one you previously used, obviously.

 

My ds started speech at newly 2 for moderate verbal apraxia.  The SLP has NO problem working with him, in spite of the fact that he's very likely going to get some form of label (adhd, take your pick) later.  When someone works with kids a lot, they develop special techniques.  For instance the SLP has chairs with trays and straps, and she puts sensory inputs under his bum and feet.  All the therapy is done with play, and she alternates active and peaceful.  She might have him do something really focused for 10 minutes, then he goes and hops on a bouncing ball or plays a more active game.  

 

They have language tests for grammar, language processing, auditory processing, etc., so they can compare her to age norms and see whether intervention is necessary.  I tend to put a LOT of stock in Mama Gut and don't think you should blow that off.  If you come over to LC, you'll meet people who had to take their dc to 4+ practitioners before someone FINALLY caught the issue.  These practitioners are SO pigeonholed, they miss stuff.  Sometimes it's that it's a less common problem.  Sometimes it's just you got a C student generalist who barely knows enough about anything and sorta helps general problems.  You throw at them the less common problem and they miss it.  Even my ds, who had moderate verbal apraxia and was totally non-verbal at 2, got the complete BLOW OFF from the first SLP we went to.  She said they'd spend months working on "communication" which with this SLP meant sign, gestures, blah blah.  I felt like I wasn't there to pay my dh's hard-earned money for communication; I was paying for him to TALK.  We walked out, went to the PROMPT therapist (certified, now an instructor), and literally the VERY FIRST DAY she had him TALKING.  

 

The therapist you go to makes all the difference.  You just don't have the right person yet.  I'm not saying she has a problem, but I agree that intelligibility at this age should be pretty good.  Even at age 4 you're expecting like 75%.  It's something we watch for with our therapy, because you can have intelligibility without full articulation.  Intelligibility includes a lot of other factors that create the overall effect.  You won't regret seeking out more evals, getting someone who's really good (the A student, the certified) and getting an all-clear.  What you'll regret is NOT doing it and 1-2 years from now being in the same place and kicking yourself.  Also read about hyper-lexia.  

[Butter]

My son did this at the same age.  He was in speech therapy for a few months.  They said it is still "normal" but just barely at 6.  Like it's on the border of being a huge issue, so she wanted me to help correct it ASAP.  They suggested saying sentences and having him repeat them, having him read aloud to me, and every. single. time. he said something incorrectly to correct it and have him repeat it.  It was a long 3 or 4 months, but he started speaking with proper grammar (and his brother - 4 at the time - corrected his own grammar just by listening, too).