thank you for your replies. It is a relief to 'speak' to other people with children experiencing the same type of problems.
I hadn't actually noticed any sort of speech problem at all. I thought she was dyslexic because she has an eye problem of some sort and I had noticed when she was trying to sound out words she didn't already know she would make some bizarre mistakes. After a dyslexia test came back as normal she managed to explain that she SEES it right and it is right in her head but she can't get the right sounds to come out. So I contacted a speech and language therapist who saw her this week and did some initial tests and said she definitely has some level of word finding problem. Since my daughter said the problem was she couldn't get the right sounds to come out (she said things like I want to say t but when I put it in the word I get th) I started to notice her mixing up brother and sister and whilst I was aware of her umming and ahhing and taking ages to get to the point I don't think I had realise how bad it was.
We are going back to the therapist in just over a week to have a more in depth word finding test (German test I think she said it was called) and start some therapy to teach her strategies for tackling the problem.
She is 6.5 so in her second year of school here (England) and at the moment because she is very bright the work is all very easy to her (that is a different story - not done anything about that really yet because we have only just got proof of how bright she is and I knew something was causing her frustration hence the other testing) so at the moment it doesn't seem to be impacting her and she doesn't yet seem self conscious of it so I am hoping that some therapy might help avoid that arising. The therapist said she thought 6 sessions of concentrated therapy would probably be enough for the moment because she is compensating pretty effectively already but that she may well need more in the future as academic language and requirements change as she gets older. I am now trying to find out as much as I can so that I can help her as well as explain to her school what her unique set of problems(or potential problems) are.
