Speech Problems

Hello all, I used this site years ago when my son was in school and it was very helpful. I am now returning to the site to see if I can find some answers with my grandson now. He is 5 years old, very very smart, but has had issues with his speech. He has gotten much better as he has gotten older but there are some things that doesn't sound right. This weekend, I was trying to get him to say words to see where he needed help. For instance, sometimes the "S" on the beginning of words are silent. He can say SANDY fine, or sunshine. But when the "S" is followed with another consonate, it is silent when he says that word. For example, START sounds like TART, STOP sounds like TOP. SNAKE sounds like NAKE. The "S" is totally not there at all. Is this a speech problem? Should we be concerned? Wondering who to even ask. Thanks for all and any suggestions.

Thanks, I will work with him this weekend and see how the ends of the words are coming out with an S. I guess I never noticed anything so if he does, it isn't prominent. I remember a tutor that worked with my son who had a lot of flash cards and I wish I still had them. They had the combination letters like Th, Ch, Str and so forth. Docs have said he had delayed speech because of ear problems. Until a year ago, no one could understand anything he said even though he could say the alphabet and recognize words and letters. Spell to a hundred, read signs ect.

My son had the same problem when he was 5. I am not a native speaker, so I can not help. The school tested him and give him speech therapy. He could produce s+vowel sound, like sad. But he can not produce the combination like stop. I remembered he said (s)mell is (s)tinky. The pathologist told him how to pronounce one combination at one time and then give him group of words to practice.