Mild pronunciation delay with 'c' and 'g' and some stammering for 2½ year old

This is a personal story with our second child: At about 2½ Poppy had a very typical simple delay of 'fronting' the velars so that "car" became "tar", "gate" became "date", etc, in the context of good vocabulary and advanced language skills.

I took the tack of lots of inputting therapy and no focus on 'saying it right', and took advantage of all communication opportunities throughout the day. For example, at bath time when she was lying on the floor to be dried, we'd do lots of fun games saying "c,c,c,c" and with close face-to-face contact.

She quickly mastered the articulation of the velars, awareness of the sounds in words, rhymes and books, and began to use the correct speech sounds spontaneously.

However, just as Poppy mastered clear speech pronunciation aged 3, she was having to compete with a very verbal older sister and so showed some dysfluency (stuttering behaviours) as a result. I encouraged all adults in the environment to model slower rates of talking, better turn taking, increased eye contact, and offering more and equal attention between the children.

This adapted environment quickly resolved any stuttering episodes, and Poppy was able to communicate with clear and fluent sentences by 3½.