Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Dyslalia
S and SH are among the latest sounds — lisping is normal in kindergarten, after that assessment pays off, teeth included.
Also known as: dyslalia · articulation disorder · speech sound disorder · lisp · sigmatism · phonological disorder · unclear speech
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Speech sounds do not arrive all at once but one after another — and the range is wide. Early sounds like M, B, P, T or D are usually secure in the third year, while K and G, consonant clusters and above all S and SH are among the latest: in many children they are only fully clean towards the end of kindergarten. Hence the rule: lisping is unremarkable until roughly preschool age and needs no treatment. If it persists beyond that, a speech therapy assessment is worthwhile — not only for the sound, but because the tongue presses against the teeth at every swallow and shapes the bite over years. Frequent companions are long dummy or thumb sucking and constant mouth breathing with a blocked nose. Professionally, a distinction is made between a sound formed wrongly on the motor level — the tongue slipping between the teeth for S — and a sound the child could produce but systematically replaces with another, such as “tay” for “key”. This second, phonological form is the more important one: it concerns the order of sounds in the mind and is more closely tied to later reading and writing. If you barely understand your child, or if outsiders say they do not, do not wait until school entry. Contacts are the paediatrician and speech therapy, plus orthodontics and ENT where teeth or nasal breathing are involved. How this is worked on in speech therapy — amount, duration, limits and the signs that are urgent — is ordered by age at logopaedie.borters.ch.
A child who does not hear sounds clearly cannot produce them clearly. Especially after ear infections.
Before that it is within the normal range. Afterwards speech therapy makes sense — also for the teeth.
“Say it after me” creates pressure. Casually repeating the word correctly helps more and shames nobody.
Prolonged sucking shapes palate and bite and keeps the tongue forward. Weaning goes easier with support.
Persistent mouth breathing belongs to ENT — enlarged adenoids, tonsils or an allergy may be behind it.
Orthodontics and speech therapy interlock: the tongue shapes the bite, the bite shapes the sound.
Playful sound work builds phonological awareness — a foundation for later reading and writing.
No practising in front of others, stop any mimicking at once. A child who feels ashamed talks less, not better.
There is no drug. What works is practice with the sound itself and with telling it apart from similar sounds — children must first hear that two sounds differ before they can make them differently. A lisp is treated from about four and a half to five years, because before that it often resolves by itself. With an open mouth, the tongue resting low and mouth breathing, the myofunctional side is treated alongside, otherwise it comes back.
Sounds mature in a fixed order: p, b, m, t, d, n early; k and g around three; s and sh around four to five; r and consonant clusters last, until about six. So a lisp at four is not a finding and at six it is. At four a stranger should understand the child fully. Therapy runs at one to two sessions a week over several months and needs short daily practice at home.
Family gets used to anything. The most honest gauge is people who rarely hear the child.
Classic lisp: the tongue tip pokes forward, the sound hisses or sounds wet. Normal before school starts.
Always T for K, always D for G: that is the phonological form — more closely linked to reading and writing.
“Nana” for “banana”, “phant” for “elephant”. Longer words show it most clearly.
Mouth breathing, dummy or thumb change tongue posture and bite — and with it the sound of sibilants.
What has not sorted itself out by school entry usually does not sort itself out later without practice.
Without B12 the insulating layer of the nerves is not maintained. A lack causes tingling, numbness and unsteadiness in the dark — and it is one of the few reasons for nerve trouble that can be fully undone if found early.
The nerves cover their energy needs through thiamine. It runs short with alcohol, after stomach operations, with long-lasting vomiting and under water tablets.
Here both count: a lack harms the nerves, and too high an intake over months harms them as well. Supplements therefore belong taken in a dose that has a reason.
Works together with B12. Given alone, folate can improve the blood count while the B12 deficiency goes on damaging the nerves — which is why both are looked at together.
Pronunciation is practised, not supplemented — and the route runs through speech therapy and through the question whether hearing is intact. What does belong here: a child who hears badly speaks back badly. The hearing test comes before every other consideration.
Clearly worthwhile and well supported when deficient — vegan, older adults, certain drugs. No energy boost without a deficiency.
In pregnancy clearly established against neural-tube defects, otherwise mainly with deficiency. Can mask a B12 deficiency — watch both.
With a lisp from tongue position speech therapy and orthodontics work together. Pure tongue exercises without a speech connection show little effect in studies.