Why does a five-year-old child speak unclearly?

Generally speaking, children can basically speak when they are over one year old, and if they are well educated, they may speak more fluently. However, some children start speaking late, and may not really speak until they are three or four years old. This is actually normal. As long as there is no problem after a physical examination, there is no need to worry. Just teach the child to speak patiently. So the question is, why does a five-year-old child speak unclearly?

There is a child among my husband's relatives. He is three years old and still can't speak clearly. He can only simply call his family members and can hardly speak for drinking water or eating. At first, the parents thought they needed to see a doctor, but the elderly in the family said it was nothing serious. Some children are born with developmental delays, so the family didn’t take it to heart. When the child was in the last year of kindergarten, the parents felt something was wrong, because according to common sense, children in the last year of kindergarten should be able to say everything and express it clearly. Not only does this child not speak clearly, he also stutters and speaks incoherently. In fact, the kindergarten teacher did remind the parents, but their parents felt that the teacher was making a fuss out of nothing.

It was not until the Spring Festival holiday that a relative who is a doctor came back to celebrate the New Year and met this child. When he asked about it, he found out that the child was over five years old, but still could not speak clearly and could not pronounce a word. This doctor relative suggested that parents should take their children to see a doctor, because some children cannot speak or speak unclearly until too late, which may be a problem with the tongue or vocal cords.

Unexpectedly, when the family took the child to the hospital for examination, it turned out that there was really a problem with the tongue! It was caused by the child's short frenulum. The doctor explained that a normal tongue tie allows the tongue to move freely. A short tongue tie means that the frenulum of the tongue does not retract under the root of the tongue after the child is born, resulting in the tongue being unable to extend deep out of the mouth and the tip of the tongue being unable to curl up. Tongue-tie deformity often causes sucking, chewing and speech disorders.

The doctor also asked why the child came for examination at the age of 5, because the child had started to correct his pronunciation at the age of 5. Fortunately, the operation was successful and the child recovered well.

If a child reaches a certain age and misses the critical period of language development, it will affect the child's life, so it must be taken seriously.