My son had a speech impediment when he was in school. There were some words that he couldn't say because some of the muscles weren't developing as they should.

I had some mothers say that he would get over it and some say that speech therapy would help the muscles along. I opted to go the speech therapy. He did well, but sometimes I wonder if I had let nature take its course would he have had gotten better on his own. Had the therapy helped him faster.

Anyone here have children that have speech impediments or did you have a speech impediment when you were young? How did you get through it?

DCMerkle

I had a speech impediment when I was young. I couldnt make the "sh" sounds corectly. My elementry school had a speech program that I went to and it all worked out fine.

Speech programs are hard to get in schools in some States. The budgeting is cut and the special ed kids are usually the ones that are at risk. My daughter had a speech problem and the school that she was going to didn't have an speech therapist on the site. She traveled around in her district. She had 40 schools to monitor. She was only able to get to my child once a month. I called the ombudsman for our school district and explained that if I could take my daughter to the next closest school where the speech therapists was due to be then my daughter could at least have two sessions a month and I could do the rest of the required therapy at home every week.

I was given permission to do that. It was tough going because I had to get all her class work that she would be missing in her home school on the day that she had her 2nd appointment. It's a shame that the budgets in the special ed programs are usually the first to get cut. Kids need these programs.

seeker

I had a speech impediement also. There were many sounds I couldn't make. I still have a minor impediment, but it is manageable. The main problem I have now is the fact that I completely blank out during a sentence.

My cousin couldn't say her R's when she was little. The basically sounded like W's. She grew out of it though.

You know when I think about it, I had a minor speech impediment. I couldn't say any words that had the "tr" sound. Everything that had that blend was said with a "f". I remember a big truck that skidded and I was pointing it out to my dad. Needless to say I embarrassed him when I yelled out, "Look daddy! See what the big, yellow *uck did."

seeker