Final consonants
“Any recommendations for helping a delayed talker with finishing out a word – even sometimes just one syllable words? Car is “ca”. Bubble is “bu”. Sip is “si”. Do I just need to continue putting emphasis on the end of words when I speak with him?”
The fancy term for this is:
Final Consonant Deletion
It can be tricky to get a child to get a child to focus on that last sound. Like you said, I will frequently over-emphasize final consonants or syllables.
“Look at the bu-BLES! They are pre-TTY”
Often I will also touch a part of my face indicating where that last sound is made. So for a sound that is made with my lips (p, b, m) I will touch my lips to draw further attention to the sound. For a front tongue sound (t, d, n) I will open my mouth a little wider and touch just outside of my lips.
Give it a try on a few key words. Just work on those words for a week. Such as mo-M, ca-T, do-G, or other words that are very common for them.
If your child has significant difficulty with final consonant deletion, and/or is 3.5 or older, please seek an evaluation from a Speech Language Pathologist.
Hi CC! Just checking in to say hi. And a continued thank you for the wealth of info you share.
This is what my newly 3 year old son is working on in speech right now. He started his speech back in Nov 07 and at that time he was 2 1/2 years old and wasn’t talking much of what you could understand he would say mama, dada, a baba and such.. So now that he is talking and I would say 90% of the stuff I understand I’m thrilled.. but his speech theripist isn’t happy with his consonants, He drops alot of them, either in the middle of the words sometime, but mostly at the end of the words. I guess alot of time I don’t always pick up on that because I’m still just thrilled he is talking and I can understand what he is wanting or needing.. but I have been doing the hand and face sort of keys to help him.. by saying stuff like Oh you meant BooKKKKK. Just sort of drawling his attention to it.. and sometime I will have him repete it correctly.. and when he does repete it he says it right.. but now I just have to figure out how to get him to put those ending consonats on with out the reminder.
My son is 3 he is starting to put them on. So far I think he is good but thanks for the tip.
Thanks for this! Dino has his big meeting after all our evaluations in two weeks–this stuff is great to know!
Hi CC! I have a speech-related question. My 6 year old still isn’t pronouncing all of his consonants… He says “weelly?” instead of “really?” And he quite often will leave off the 1st consonant in words – like “‘afeat” instead of “defeat”. As in,”Mommy! I ‘afeated the bad guys!” He has a great vocabulary. I know these are normal speech peculiarities for a younger child… Are they still normal in a 6 year old? Thanks.