My Child Can't Say Truck - edited and updated

 My younger brother had speech difficulties until well after he started school.  Being almost 7 years older than him, I remember quite clearly what it was like trying to communicate with him as a child, and all the little tricks that were used to get around various problems.  One of the most embarassing was that he couldn't say "truck" properly.  Instead of creating a 'tr' sound, he would make an 'f' sound.  You can imagine my dear Mother's astonished and ashamed expression when walking down the street with him and he - like all little vehicle-loving boys - starts yelling (what should be, but isn't) "TRUCK!" at the top of his voice.

Fortunately my Mother was a crossword fanatic and living thesaurus.  Instead of getting upset by it, she simply repeated many times over, "No Gary, say lorry".  Eventually my brother started calling trucks "lorries".   This worked a charm.  Even though it caused some confusion, as being an older word, many people thought he was saying "lolly".  At least that sounded much nicer - not to mention when a child is thought to be yelling "lolly", many elderly ladies would often give him one.  Maybe that had something to do with his rapid learning of the new term?

Many years later when my own son started to have the same problem, I fell back on my Mother's concept:  change the terminology.  Find another word for the same thing.  "Truck" becomes "lorry" and to save confusion, "lolly" becomes "candy" or "sweets".  "Ship" becomes "boat", "can't" is lengthened to "can not", and "rock" becomes "stone" or "music" (depending on the use).

A good thesaurus and a little imagination - and sometimes with the help of terms from other countries (such as British or American lingo / slang / coloquialisms / nicknames / idioms, see it's easy!) - and all these problems can easily be overcome.