Daughter being referred to speech and language

sued86

my daughters speech used to be brilliant until about 6 months ago when I started noticing that it was getting difficult to understand what she is saying. Her class teacher has noticed it and says she is missing sounds and wants to refer her to speech and language. Do you have any idea why her speech would decline like this? 

JulesA65

How old is she? Could it be she is picking up bad habits off other pupils? Not all children speak properly or pronounce words correctly? Speech and language could be a good idea. Look at the positive, if there are any issues they will be picked up. It may be something or nothing, you could ask a health visitor or your gp. Don't stress about it though, it is probably nothing to worry about

Pippa_Alumni

Welcome to the community, @sued86!

Hopefully @NicolaLatheySLT will be in touch soon and able to advise. Do keep us updated, and wishing you all the best for your daughter's appointment.

Sam_Alumni

Has she had a hearing test @sued86 ?

NicolaLatheySLT

Hello Sued86, I'm sorry to hear you've been concerned about your daughter.  Sometimes a child is able to say shorter sentences much better than they can say longer sentences, so when a child's language expands, the mistakes become more noticeable, e.g. missing the middle or end sounds of a word or missing off some of the syllables in longer words.  Do you think that could be a factor?  Thanks Nicola (speech therapist)

dolfrog

sued86 
How is your daughter progressing.
One of the possible issues which has not been mentioned so far is Auditory Processing Disorder (APD0 which is about the brain having problems processing what the ears hear, which can include the sounds of speech used by others which can be part of the learning process. 
In order to use new words we need to be able to process the whole sound of a new word by listening to others saying the word. Those of us who have one or more of the 4 types of Auditory Processing Disorders can have problems processing the sounds of new words, especially when we are not very familiar with the person's voice saying the new word. We can have problems processing the order of the multiple sounds that can make up a word and have problems reproducing the whole sound of a word. this can be  life long issue. 
Auditory Processing Disorder is the main underlying cause of both Specific Language Impairment SLI (which is now being marketed as Developmental Language Disorder DLD) and Developmental Dyslexia, international research regarding these issues is still ongoing.