My 3 year old son has had tubes put in twice and has had surgery to remove tonsils and adenoids. His speech seems to fluctuate between very clear and sounding like he has a mouthful of marbles. Any ideas about why ?
Could be that when he's tired - speaking clearly is just too much work.
Speech can also change around a lot as new teeth come in.
It's worth keeping an eye on it but I wouldn't worry too much about it right now.
Good question for ENT or the speech therapist. Is it his mouth (tongue) or is it his hearing that's affected?
Even an ear infection can delay a child's hearing for a time, and set them back. That happened to one of ours. At that age, they are still learning so much every month that an ear infection (or just fluid in ears) can set them back for quite a while - and it can seem delayed after the fact so the two don't appear to be connected.
One of our kids has allergies and speech would be a bit garbled. Have you had tests done? It also explained why had extra fluid in ears to begin with.
When it's garbled, does it stay that way long enough for you to grab a quick video (or least audio) on your phone? That would be vey helpful for the doctor.
What does his pediatrician say?
My son was the same way. He was around 4 when other people could finally understand him. If my son got excited about something, or if he was tired he would talk too fast and you couldn't understand him. We constantly told him to slow down.
I had 4 sets of tubes as a child and tonsils and adenoids removed too. I went to speech for a while. I would get his hearing checked. My sons pediatrician has some device where they put this thing in the kids ear and it measures the sound waves. I would try that before you go to a specialist in case there is no hearing issue.
You need to get a speech evaluation from a speech therapist. It's very important to do this. Don't wait!
My grandchildren have garbled speech when they're excited or tired. They are talking too fast. I ask them to put a space between words. Usually, I can then understand them.
I suggest that because his speech is clear some of the time, this may not.be a physical issue. I would ask his pediatrician about it.
my boys both had lots of tubes, and tonsil and adenoidectomies.
their hearing clearly fluctuated madly, but i don't recall a significant bounce in their ability to speak clearly.
and if i had, the first place i'd have gone with questions would have been their ENT specialist.
khairete
S.
