Teach Child with Unclear Speech To Say 1 to 10

Hi, this is Magan Chen. This is a channel about speech therapy tips.
And today we're going to be talking about numbers.

Today, one to 10 numbers.
So this will be useful if you have a child who doesn't have a speech yet, but who has a real interest in numbers, likes to point in numbers, like to look at numbers or listen to number songs and so forth, right.

Or if you have a child who is just starting to use speech and can say the numbers, but the numbers are not clear.

So I love working with numbers because it's a good opportunity to also share with parents how speech develops. You want to know from 1 to 10 what are the sounds that are easier for a child and what sounds may be more difficult for a child so that you start with the easier sounds, obviously.

So let's say the first scenario, just recently I was working with a little girl who has no speech but who has a real interest in numbers and loves to take mommy's hand and point to different numbers.

OK, so FYI. Of all the numbers 1 to 10 right, the easiest sound to say, developmentally speaking. Meaning that as a child develops.
All right, the easiest sounds would be what we call vowel sounds.
AEIOU. 

So the number 8 is usually the easiest to say because you don't really have to worry very much about town positions or lip positions and so forth.
As long as you can make the sound at your vocal cords and you've got the right shape for the mouth, 8 is usually easiest.

So what we would do is to actually, for me, you can work with a number puzzle. All right, all work with our numbers, with a book and so forth, with a video. And what we will do is to actually say, you know, 123-4567.
And then Paul said so for a child who is very familiar with the sequence as expecting 8.

But if you don't say 8 and nobody says 8, it's like 123-4567 and the silence, the child is going to try to come up the sounds and fill in the blank, all right.
So once she says makes a sound, now it's not. It's quite likely that the first time the child tries it is not going to come as a clear 8, right? Maybe just, you know, it's a sound like that, sound like that.

But we interpret it as age and reward the child. Great. All right.
OK, you know it's eight. That will continue 9, 10 and so forth.
So the idea is to pause at 8, do not say 8, and then let your child actually come up with sound. I didn't come up the word, of course. Or to say very clearly 8.

All right. Why are you not saying 8? Right.
For the child to actually say 8 and then reinforce that, praise the child and repeat it again. Yeah. Great. Yeah, it's 8.

All right. Mommy forgot or Daddy forgot. Whatever. Right. And then you continue. So from there, because that's the easiest sound. And then we can move on to other numbers. All right.
What about if your child is already saying one to 10, but the sounds may not be very clear.  OK, so let's talk about the other sounds.

So the first one. OK, this one sometimes is tricky, more because when children can't manage this they're likely to say month, but but something like that because they can't manage the movement.

All right, I talk about how very often children need speech therapy because for other peers, for other children their age, it may be a very small step. And we don't realise that.

It could be actually quite a big step for a child who has difficulty. And for one, for example, for us maybe it sounds like just a word. It's a very simple small step to us. But actually requires a couple of different lip movements, so you need to go from like around a little.

1..1... You need to be able to round your lips. OK, and this is also the same sound or the same movement that you need if you're trying to teach your child to say, you know, something like requesting and say I want, I want Juice or I want chips, I want or it's the same sound 123 and I want or it starts the same way.

So just for you to know that if your child is having difficulty starting of the one, or quite often, it may be because of this particular movement, So what can you do? You can actually emphasise the sound a little bit more when you're teaching. So rather than just saying, you know, OK, see after me, you know, say 123.

One, to really slow down, emphsise, get a a mirror so you can see the mouth movements and so forth. All right, what? So the lip rounding is required.
OK, after that two all right. Two starts with the letter T sound.
So a child needs to be able to have the tongue in the T position plus also be able to blow out. 

I don't tend to talk about a tongue position a lot with children, more because you know, you can't really see the tongue in the mouth. Anyway, even while I'm doing this I too you can't really see my tongue movements, so I tend to emphasise more of the air coming out.

So what you can do is to actually take your child's hand, right? So this will be not the you know your hand, but your child's hand and actually say chew and emphasise. And blow a little bit harder so your child can actually feel the air coming out right quite often.

It's not necessarily just, you know, the way you teach, but just the fact that you're emphasising. And because you're slowing down, you're making it, you know, slower, louder and clearer. It will really help the child in terms of, you know, trying to do something different as well.

If we do something different, it's like if the child will do something different as well. Again, you work with quite a number of my students. Where once a parent takes a child's hand and allows, you know, it kind of like it saves the tea, saves the two into the child's hands so that he or she can feel the air movement. 

Again, you're on the right track, all right. Very often, a lot of these things I talk about, it doesn't mean that it may work straight away, but you want to take baby steps, that you're moving in the right direction and you're building up the awareness and helping the child to, you know, make the small little changes and move in the right direction.

123. OK, please do not worry about saying THR, you know correctly, All right? You've got TH, you've got R And in terms of the child's development, those sounds are all quite difficult with three OK For some adults, even those sounds may be difficult to manage, so don't worry too much about it.

I would tend to emphasise 3. The fact that there is an EE sound OK and then moving on, we have four OK, we've got 4, 5.
6, 7. All right, these begin with letter F, letter S, and these are all again, blowing sounds, right. That's why you know, emphasising how you feel the air coming up.

4567 All right, Emphasising those would help. Also encouraging your child to do activities such as blowing bubbles. You know, blowing cotton, wool.
You know, we've got some hot food, hot soup too. Lower and so forth. 

So those are all blowing sounds. So at them, so we've got 4567 and then of course we've got the easiest sound that we talk about just now.
Eight and then moving on 9. All right, Nine.

This is a little bit easier for you to see even visually. So if I'm saying 9, you can see nine. This one. That's what I mean by, you know, having the tongue movement. That's how we produce all the different sounds when you can see one to 10 clearly and you hear them as ten different sounds.

Or words is because each one, you know, I'm actually producing the right tongue movement and the mouth movements. All right. So for 9, as you can see this one, you really need the tongue to be lifted up in the right position.
So sometimes I just emphasise again just as a baby, such as to emphasise.

And then just move this on a little bit, all right, So that you help the children realise that, OK, we might should be focusing on, you know, moving my tongue as well, nine and then 10, we're back to the teaser. The one where you feel the air sound all right. 

So hopefully that's giving you a better idea of how you know when you're working with our numbers, which is a topic that a lot of children find, really.
A lot of exposure to a lot of interest because they always hear one to 10 alright.
It's always the same way.

So they get a lot of practise hearing. They're very familiar with it. And they like the comfort of being able to see it.  So now that you know more about how you produce it sounds, hopefully it makes it a little bit easier for you to teach your child. 

If you've gotten something out of this, please like share and subscribe or you can comment below as well.
And I'll see you in other videos.
Thank you very much.

Our Contributor

The author, Ms Magan Chen brings with her more than 30 years of speech and language therapy experience in both private hospital and enrichment centre settings. This gives us exceptional understanding of our clients’ medical and/or school needs.

She has helped more than 1500 individuals to overcome their communication or learning difficulties.

Ms. Magan Chen trained in London, U.K. (M.Sc. Human Communication) and Sydney, Australia (B. App. Sc. in Speech Pathology).

Magan is a registered Speech Therapist with the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC) in Singapore.

She is also the founding President of Speech-Language and Hearing Association Singapore (SHAS, the professional body representing Speech Language Therapists in Singapore).

Magan has been interviewed and featured in various newspapers and magazines such as Young Parents Magazine, The Straits Times & The New Paper.

Together with Magan, our team of competent and caring speech language therapists and teachers help hundreds of individuals improve their ability to communicate and have more say in life.

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