Okay, I usually read all the posts first and I haven't had a chance yet. But I just wanted to chime in because two of my three have had annunciation problems that belied their much higher than age comprehension and use of language.
My first DS was able to speak in sentences at 12 months, but never babbled and tended both to not speak often and to use mainly vowels and not consonants. (He'd had a ton of ear infections and his hearing always tested fine, but I always wondered if he just couldn't hear at the frequency of consonants. Anyway, it was just a personal theory.) He had speech therapy from about 2.5 to 3, but like your experience, he had a speech explosion that we feel had very little if anything to do with the therapy (he got booted out of therapy because his receptive language was years above age-appropriate). What I think did the trick was concentrating on phonics. DS started watching "Between the Lions" on PBS by chance and I noticed that I could discuss with him how, if you change the beginning or ending sounds but kept the vowels the same that it completely changed the meaning of the word. We talked about how when he spoke but didn't say all the letters carefully other people couldn't understand him. We also read a lot of books like "Hop on Pop" for the same reason. For him, that's all it took. (Of course, it could just have been that it just clicked for him because that was the right developmental timing
for him.) In 1st grade he had speech therapy at school for two months because he didn't say "ls" properly, but two months was all it took. BTW: He's 12 now and has no speech problems whatsoever, but he still doesn't like to talk much.
He has had times over the years, though, where I considered CAPD and dyslexia, and we think he's ADHD-inattentive. He's an A student, but he just has to work so hard at school and has some of the classic characteristics of both of those.
For my younger DS, who is now 7, he just speaks lazily. When he was referred to the speech therapist at school for testing they figured out that he could say all the age-appropriate sounds and then some (which I knew) and that he just doesn't when he's talking or reading. He therefore doesn't qualify for services, but what they suggested is that when he's reading, I have him read out loud to me for at least five minutes a day and during that time he is instructed to specifically concentrate on saying that particular sound in the appropriate words as he reads. So, at first he was concentrating on "c" and "k" sounds. Later he went on to include "g" sounds. The idea is that eventually he will just get used to saying the words correctly in the same way that he is now used to saying the words incorrectly. It really seemed to work at first, and I even saw him catching himself and correcting himself when he pronounced things incorrectly when speaking. It's not working as well recently, though, I think because I got a little more lax about requiring him to read outloud to me, and also because he's a great reader and it's really hard for him to read slowly enough to really focus on his pronunciation and to still comprehend what he's reading. But, since the point of the excercise is really to get him to slow down and focus on pronunciation, I need to get back on track. Luckily, DS7 has not had any social problems due to his annunciation, but it has had some ramifications on further grade acceleration. He, BTW, has absolutely no issues with CAPD or ADHD or dyslexia or anything else. Annunciation is his only thing.
So, anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you are not alone, and I thought I'd throw out a couple of things thay may help.
