SPEECH

i. Intelligibility of Speech

Intelligibility refers to ‘speech clarity’. As children learn to talk, their intelligibility to those around them steadily increases. As a parent you should understand 25% of your child’s speech by 18 months, 50-75% by 24 months, and 75-100% by 36 months.

ii. Speech Sound Development

Some sounds develop later than others. While children do develop at their own pace to some extent, we know that there are certain milestones which should be reached by a specific age.
Children don’t learn to produce all sounds at the start.
By 2 years, toddlers can say a range of speech sounds when talking (e.g. p, b, m, t, d, n, h, w) but it is only at 3 years, they can say other sounds (e.g. k, g, f, s, ng) .
The sounds like ‘z’, ‘sh’, ‘f’, ‘v’, ‘r’, and ‘th’ are produced even later.
Between 4-5 years, preschool children commonly have difficulty with “r” (e.g., saying “wed” for red), “v” (e.g., saying “berry” for very), and “th” (e.g., saying “fank you” for thank you).
Some children are still developing the ability to use consonant clusters (e.g. scribble and strawberry), or to say all the sounds correctly in longer words (e.g., caterpillar and spaghetti).
It is also normal for children to simplify words at an early age. By three, even though your child will use most speech sounds in their words, they might still pronounce words differently from adults. For example, even though they can say the sounds ‘b’ and ‘l’, he might have trouble combining them together in ‘blue’ and will simplify the word to “bue”.

Some children may have difficulty in articulating some speech sounds or in combining sounds together into words. In these instances he or she may need assistance from a speech pathologist. If, as a parent, you are in doubt about your child’s speech sound development or speech clarity, book an appointment at Essential Speech Pathology today.
We will quickly tell you if your child is ‘on track’ and making the right combination of correct sounds and ‘errors’ for their age.