My four-year-old son has problems pronouncing a lot of words due to him getting a lot of his teeth removed from staying on the bottle too long. I was wondering if there is anything else I could do to help him out a little better at his words and his pronunciation. My mother said it was because I don’t spend enough time with him, but I spend a lot of time with him trying to make him speak better, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Could you help me with something better?

If he currently has very few teeth, pronunciation of all words would be difficult. In the English language, many of our consonants are made by the tongue pushing off of the front of our teeth. If they aren’t there, the sound would be distorted. This should cure itself as his adult teeth grow back in. I know that might be a ways away, but there’s not much to be done at this point. As a precaution, I would also have his ears checked by a pediatrician to make sure that he is hearing properly and that his mispronunciations are due only to missing teeth and not hearing issues. If his pronunciation does not correct itself when his teeth grow back, then a visit to a speech therapist would be in order. Good luck.