Parents' Role In Speech Training

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30814, 28 July 1965, Page 13

Parents ' Role In Speech Training

If the parent who was anxious about the speech of a ynall child concentrated on providing affection and security and a good speech pattern. many of the difficulties would right themselves, Mr B. Dunne, senior lecturer of the English and speech department of the Christchurch Teachers’ College, told the monthly meeting of the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Association of Teachers of Speech and Drama. Speech was an activity learned through listening and i participating in an environment provided by others. Mr Dunne said. Many children starting school spoke in a manner unintelligible to strangers, and repression. \

fear, and insecurity tended, to accentuate these difficulties.; Mr Dunne traced speech i development from baby-hood: to the late teens, outlining | the speech faults found at the | various levels. He said that' in a survey of 12.000 child-: ren in Otago, he had found that the most prevalent: faulty sounds were s, r, th.! and 1. Sometimes the trouble | arose because of the loss of' the front teeth, but children found difficulty in differentiating between f, th, and s., because these were high fre- ■ quency sounds with no clear: place to pin-point in forma-' tion. Most children in the lower standards could manage all consonant sounds separately and in double and triple combinations. said Mr Dunne Faults which persisted beyond this stage should be referred to speech therapists for correction. “Most children in the up-1 per standards speak clearly,'! though often too softly or too loudly, but this stage is often followed by a phase in which bad speech is deliberately adopted as part of a personality cult.” said Mr Dunne. This was best ignored as it was given importance only by our condemnation and may be short-lived. “Teen-agers who remain at school in the sixth form often develop a new speech awareness, examine their own speech, and, if they find it unfit for the profession which they wish to enter, set about improving it,” he said. “There is a growing awareness of the importance of good speech among schoolteachers for adequate communication and the setting of a good example.” After the address, members divided into two groups under the leadership of Mrs J. Coote and Mrs E. May, and discussed questions relating to the responsibilities of parents, schoolteachers, and speech teachers in the matter of children’s speech.