Speech infliction transposing s-words.

December 20, 2007 5:18 PM

My kid is transposing "s" to the end of the word, line snow->nows. I am curious is this is a common thing, has a name, or just something they go through...

He is already diagnosed slightly hyperlexic, and in a bi-lingual environment so there is some speech delay, but he is catching up nicely. But increasingly I have found it interesting that he pronounces s-words this way. If I slow him down and have him repeat it, he can do it just fine. I have included some special cases, and correct cases too.


Examples:

Means -> says
snow nows
small malls
sniff niff (no trailing s)
soon soon (well suun)
star tars
spill pills
slow lows
sleep sleep
spoon poons

That's all I can remember from the top of my head :) Not particularly concerned, but I find it interesting. Being the first born it is hard to know what is "normal", and no English speaker kids around to check with.

posted by lundman to Writing & Language (21 answers total)

How old is your son?
posted by Chanther at 5:36 PM on December 20, 2007

There was a few with my youngest son, but it didn't last long.

mores smores
noose snooze
neese sneeze
lams slams

Actually, seeing it typed, it isn't the same. My son was dropping the "s", not transposing.
Interesting.
posted by Mblue at 5:43 PM on December 20, 2007

Based on the fact that he does "soon" correctly, does it have something to do with words that start with an "s" then another consonant (not words in general that start with an "s")?
posted by Airhen at 5:45 PM on December 20, 2007

Well, it's a little like a spoonerism. Normally spoonerisms occur between two words (e.g., "sparking pot" for "parking spot," for instance), but they can occur within a word (e.g., "flutterby" for "butterfly"). A single word spoonerism is pretty similar to what your son is doing.

I doubt that's what a speech pathologist would call it, though.
posted by jedicus at 5:46 PM on December 20, 2007

My son sort of transposes syllables and words:
forget > getfor
doing > dooning
remember >bermember
kitchen counter > counter kitchen

And others I can't bermember now. He also gets words "right" if he slows down. It's nothing I've been concerned about, if that's what your question is. But as Chanther suggests above, your son's age will be a better indicator if this is an affliction or just a phase.
posted by cocoagirl at 6:01 PM on December 20, 2007

Response by poster: I meant to say the age, guess I forgot. He turned 4 in September. His Japanese level is on par with English, but generally lags your "normal" child.
posted by lundman at 6:40 PM on December 20, 2007

My younger did something similar with compound words (compound terms?) during her earlier years. Pocket money = money pocket, peanut butter = butter peanut, etc. She's grown out of it completely and hopefully your son will too!
posted by PuGZ at 6:43 PM on December 20, 2007

younger sister*
posted by PuGZ at 6:43 PM on December 20, 2007

My 3 1/2 year old tends not to pronounce blends, so he does the first part of what your son is doing: "No" for snow, "poon" for spoon, "pooky" for spooky, and so on. Moving the "s" to the end is very interesting!

My older son mixed up syllables as a little guy. Our favorite was "s'mix menser" for "cement mixer."

I am not a speech therapist or especially knowledgeable, but what your son is doing seems entirely within the realm of "normal" to me.
posted by not that girl at 7:38 PM on December 20, 2007

Kids are built with the ability to learn any human language (generally lost by age 5 or so) and will try any rule that works in some language somewhere.

Nothing to worry about for a couple more years anyway.
posted by TeatimeGrommit at 8:28 PM on December 20, 2007

My daughter says

tapes > paste (as in toothpaste)
nows > snows
tars > star

She is almost 2. So, I don't know how that syncs up with your son's age but it doesn't seem to be uncommon.
posted by jeanmari at 8:30 PM on December 20, 2007

My nieces both did it. The older one is now 4 and a great and clear talker. The younger one is 2 and she still does it a little. Her preschool teachers name are Tina and Trina. She calls them Ninut and Other Ninut.
posted by clh at 9:59 PM on December 20, 2007

Stumbling over consonant clusters are a normal part of the language acquisition process in children, pretty much universally. It is a normal part of speech development. There's quite a large (and quite recent) body of observational study done on it -- I've just been listening to a lecture series about it.

If you're interested in what's happening (and don't have much background already), pick up a basic linguistics text that has some focus on childhood language acquisition -- it's an amazing, and amazingly consistent, process. One of the most astonishing things the human animal does, in my humble.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:40 PM on December 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster:
It certainly has been interesting, everything from his hyperlexia, to speech delay, and yet, can already correct me on my Japanese (damn kids), I did linguistics at University and I speak 4 languages but I have little formal knowledge about such things.

Thanks for the replies everyone.
posted by lundman at 12:00 AM on December 21, 2007

Cool. It follows a pattern. Initial [sC] clusters lose the s and add it to the end, as long as the last C is a liquid. I'm probably missing something, because I'm about to board a plane. I can't remember if w counts as a liquid. But the point is that your word-initial [s] doesn't move when the final sound is a fricative [f] or a stop.

Damn it's been a long time since linguistics was part of my life. I can't remember a thing. I just thought it was cool.

Oops. Boarding.
posted by Stewriffic at 5:57 AM on December 21, 2007

Ask a Speech-Language Pathologist at your local public school.
posted by davcoo at 6:19 AM on December 21, 2007

Ask a Speech-Language Pathologist at your local public school.

Do not do this.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:23 AM on December 21, 2007

This is common for kids from age 2 to even 7. My daughter could not say anything with a c, for instance "cold" was "told." It is all within their linguistic learning curve. What we did that really helped was searched for some online rhymes, such as the Sally seashore ones, and instead of making it a tongue twister, we taught it to her line by line. For her "c," I believe we did "the crooked cat crawled on the counter to get the cookie." I am sure it was not that exact one, but practice made perfect and she got over her language barrier phase by the age of 3.

I would suggest to never ever scold the child, it does more harm in the long term than you think. I rarely even said "no" when I was correcting her, I just repeated her sentence, not just the word, and told her what the correct enunciation was. Patience is key with this because most parents forget that in addition to developing motor skills, a child's tongue is not as flexible when pronouncing. Surely you cannot expect a child to twist open a bottle top, right?

Good luck!
posted by dnthomps at 6:24 AM on December 21, 2007

Sounds like a timing issue. The coordination of the [sC] cluster is probably off. You have to get just the right closure to pronounce the fricative. Starting from the stop is "easier" than starting from a narrow closure and then moving into the stop. The [s] is probably coming in after the liquid because you have airflow already going on.

I'm curious, does your other household language have any s-cluster prohibitions (e.g., Spanish doesn't allow initial [sC] combinations, for the most part). Your son could still be sorting out which rules apply to each language.

(Phonologist in a former life.)

Rob
posted by robabroad at 7:10 AM on December 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

Ask a Speech-Language Pathologist at your local public school.
Do not do this.

Can't argue with that logic.
posted by davcoo at 9:17 AM on December 21, 2007

Response by poster: "local public school" would be in Japanese, so even if I managed to stumble through a question, the answer would be somewhere in my stratosphere.

robabroad: We generally speak English, I can speak Swedish/Danish, and the wife some Russian. But it is an interesting point, as Japanese will not have 's' followed by any consonant. It is only Su- Se- Sa- Si- So-. Sleep -> "Suri-pu". Stop->"Sutoppu". The "u" vowels nearly silent. I did not expect that to somehow lead towards a delayed 's'.
posted by lundman at 11:08 PM on December 21, 2007