Hello!

My daughter will be going to school next year and is really excited. However, I am nervous because she has issues with her speech. She talks with a lisp and doesn’t say her “s”s should I be worried and get a plan for speech therapy now before school or should I wait until she goes to school?


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  • I would definitely get her assessed before school. The earlier the better because some form of intervention can be started before school making it easier for your child when they do begin formal schooling. (my friend is a speech therapist I asked her for advice). The speech therapist will then be able to go through options with you after the assessment.


  • I noticed this question was posted a number of years ago so I hope all went well with your little girl.


  • No! Shes only preschool. Not prehighscool. Just help her along repeating words and rolemodelling speech.


  • At the very least, get an assessment now.


  • My son had a bit of a lisp too when he was three and went to a speech therapist free of charge that was refered to by the childhood clinic. He went for many weeks and he did improve after that and learnt a lot from the activities that was given to him . If you private health insurance that covers speech therapy and still concerned , you can go to a private one as well. May as well use it if you need it .


  • A lisp isn’t a major speech problem, at least she she can speak and be understood. But take her to a speech therapist, have her checked out etc


  • We did use a speech therapist before school started, and I’m glad we did. Kids that needed one once at school were taken out of class time for school based sessions.


  • What did you decide to do?


  • I would say yes get some speech therapy it can’t hurt if anything it would be beneficial and of some help my older son had a lisp and he has speech therapy and it really did help him he no longer has speech therapy more because of the speech therapy help him so do it every thing will be fine


  • The earlier you get to the problem the better for your child’s self esteem and confidence. If left till she goes to school she may find it harder to adapt and her confidence gets affected which will be harder to build up again.


  • The earlier you get onto it the better so I would suggest to at least have one appointment to see what they say


  • No, that’s perfectly normal. Does she stutter? If so the. Maybe, but a lisp is more about her teeth


  • Yes, do it before starting school if possible. My youngest has been put on the kindy speech program which we’re grateful for, but it’s not enough so we now also go private. Be ready to invest 30 minutes everyday as well as financially. We also use a great app from the Apple Store only called Articulation Station – which was recommended by our speechy. Would be interested to see how they address a lisp vs fixing an incorrect sound (such as f, l or sh). It’s all about tongue placement so I’m sure they could help. Good luck!


  • Speech Pathology Australia say that early intervention is best for little ones because it helps with their confidence levels. They have some great fact sheets on their website about what is considered normal and when to seek intervention. It might be worth popping over to their site to have a look for yourself.
    Good luck.


  • if you can afford to get he into speech then yes unfortunately I couldn’t afford that for my daughter but tried thorugh the doctors for two years to get her assessed before kindy and still nope so I ended up waiting till she was in kindy and with 6 month they had her referred with an appointment 4 years later she speaks so well she just finished her last speech this year yay but honestly there are a lot of kids that have speech problems in kindy the teachers will pick it up asap or you could tell thm your worried about her speech on the first day so they note this asap


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