Speech again ...

[Stephanie]

I had this problem with my sons speech - he's only 5 - he started drawing out the last word of every sentence almost overnight.

 

Now, again, almost overnight he has changed into sounding like Dick Van Dyke ... pronouncing all his vowels wrong like play= ploy, games = goimes, like = loike. I don't know where it has come from, he is not copying anyone or anything.

 

Anyone else had this, and if so is there anything I can do about it? Will it be shortlived?

[baddad]

Hi steph -

 

First solution: move to Orrrstraaaleya, land of the rising dipthong!

 

Second (more sensible) suggestion: Try playing a few vocal 'games' where you are exaggerating the tongue and mouth movements for the correct vowel sounds to one another and visually demonstrating for mirroring.

 

I was doing this with Ben the other morning for 'Finger/Thumb' (Thinger/Fumb), and - to huge hilarity - with the 't' and 's' sounds in 'thesis'.

 

Ben has occassional periods where he loses his 'r's' (fnar fnar) and (i.e.) 'lolly' becomes 'nonny'... He also has a recurrent occasional lithp. Each time he re-learns them he gets a little bit more consistent, and the periods in between get longer. I'd put money on a similar learning curve with your son.

 

L&P

 

BD

[Flora]

Ahhh, both of my boys do this quite often. Sometimes Luke speaks with a perfect Yorkshire accent and we've never ever lived there. Maybe that's because he mixes it with a touch of my geordie and his own oxfordshire accent, but he seems to be a very good mimic and will speak exactly like the person he'stalking to to a the time.

 

William went through a phase of talking like Bugs Bunny, and for a time like a Brooklyn cab driver!!!

 

I have found that ignoring it doesn't really work. But speaking back to them in the same way draws attention to what they are doing thereforr making them concious of it and often that's enough to reduce it.

 

Basically, I don't think it's a major problem but every body is different.

 

Lauren

[aro]

Hi "I" sounds like inspector Cloussuex murdering her vowels too! I asked a friend who is a speech therapist and she said the child needs a level of understanding and be old enough to do the exercises to change it. hopefully it's just a phase

Annax

[Eva]

Hi,

 

I've often thought of moving to the UK because my son has a British accent - and after repeated viewings of Fireman Sam I've detected a bit of a Welsh intonation creeping in. I'm trying to encourage him to use that 'oi' sounds more, lol!

 

Cheers,

 

Eva

[lil_me]

Hi,

 

I've often thought of moving to the UK because my son has a British accent - and after repeated viewings of Fireman Sam I've detected a bit of a Welsh intonation creeping in. I'm trying to encourage him to use that 'oi' sounds more, lol!

 

Cheers,

 

Eva

Funny that as my sons English and has an American accent a lot, it is reducing but I had always wondered if people in other countries had the same problem with accents.

 

Oh and a funny one, a friend of mine used to live across the road from a Welsh football player, her son was obsessed with him, because of his accent he thought he must live in Ponty Pandy or wherever it is Fireman Sam lived, and constantly asked him about the characters

[jlp]

No help I'm afraid but my son (6) is driving me mad with a broad Geordie accent!

 

Now we are Geordies but don't have broad accent but ds is driving me up the wall with 'aa divven't knaa', 'aam ganning oot' I can't think of anyone he sees who speaks so broadly.

 

Also there's some babyish expressions creeping in like 'I getted' instead of 'got'

 

Nice to know it's not just us.

 

At one point we were subjected to his interpretion of the voice of a boy from school - everything said twice and in a really annoying voice!

[Eva]

This is really funny. Where do the accents come from? Maybe it's from tv, heard at some crucial moment in their development and once heard, never forgotten. But then, surely the accent spoken by the parents is heard more?

 

I'm curious to know what eventually happens. Do the accents go, to be replaced by another or does it stay with them? Anyone knows?

 

Oh good, dh just come home with take away, yay!

 

Cheers,

Eva

[butterflycake]

My ds1 sounds english and hes never even been to england. I always wondered why he sounds like it.

[BusyLizzie100]

Ds2 does accents/voices brilliantly. I thought he was just picking it up from videos etc - he does a great Wallace & Gromit. He loves watching all the extras on the DVDs, and there's a bit on W&G where it discusses how many languages it's been translated into, so now we get the odd Japanese phrase too. Sounds perfect, but none of us know what it means! Probably 'don't forget the crackers'!

 

I've since found out that he also gets people's voices in real life down to a T, too. He can do his LSA perfectly!

 

He does tend to do this kind of drawing out of the vowels, too, eg instead of 'more' he says 'maaahr'. When we repeat what he says back to him in the same way, he corrects it and says it 'normally'. Don't know if he's just playing or whether he doesn't realise he's doing it.

[Eva]

My son's accent is changing a bit now. It's becoming quite clipped, sort of more like an Italian speaking English!

 

His 'a' is like 'u' - he pronounces 'cat' and 'cut' the same way. What region of the Uk would that be from lol?

 

Cheers,

Eva

[Flora]

William has had me in fits with his impression of the Churchill dog.... whenever I ask him something he answers either 'ohh Yes'... or... 'ohh No'.... just like the dog in the advert