Dear Ruth,

My five year old son does not or cannot pronounce all words which begin with /s/. For example, instead of snack, he says 'nack.'. Steak is pronounced ‘teak,’ school is 'chool.'. He will be starting kindergarten in the fall. Is this a problem that needs to be addressed through speech therapy, or is it a developmental issue which will resolve itself in time?

L.B.

Dear L.B.,

Some normally-developing children to not master /s/ until the early school years. Your description suggests that your son is pronouncing /s/ in some words, but omitting it when two consonants are clustered together at the beginning of a word. I expect that he will continue to learn how to use /s/ without speech therapy. Do not hesitate to ask the school speech/language pathologist for advice.

You can help your son to sharpen his listening for /s/ clusters by stretching out your own pronunciation: "What would you like for s-s-s-snack?" You can teach him that /s/ is the 'snake sound' and make a game of listening for it in words, songs, poems, and everyday talk.

Best Wishes,
Ruth Alice Jurey, M.S.
Speech/Language Pathologist