Speech sound difficulties
What is speech and what is the difference between speech and language?
Speech is a child’s ability to produce the sounds in spoken words. Language is their ability to meaningfully use words to communicate and understand others.
What is typical speech sound development?
During a child’s speech development, there are sounds that develop early from 2 to 3yo, middle sounds that develop from 3 to 4 yo and sounds that develop later between 4 and 6yo. It is typical for children to have difficulties producing some sounds developmentally beyond their current age. However, if their speech sound errors persist beyond the average age that they should have acquired the sound or resolved the error, it’s recommended a Speech Pathologist assesses them.
For example, as children learn how to talk, they might say "lellow" for "yellow" or "wabbit for rabbit". However ,they should be able to correctly say yellow by age 2-3 and rabbit by age 5.
Another example could be, a child who has a lisp (e.g. “thun” for “sun”) should be able to say “s” correctly by age 4.
Some children may also have difficulties with coordinating their muscles in their mouth and learning the motor patterns needed to use sounds smoothly, consistently and efficiently. This is called Childhood Apraxia of Speech.
Some children may also have structural difficulties in their mouth such as a cleft lip or palate, breathing and resonance difficulties , hearing or voice difficulties which impacts their speech and ability to communicate with others.
How well should my child’s speech be understood?
A non-familiar person should be able to approximately understand short spoken sentences:
3yo: 68%
3.5yo: 78%
4yo: 86%
4.5yo: 91%
5yo: 94%
6yo: 97%
(Percentages taken from Hustad et al 2021 Speech Intelligibility data research.)
This handy guide from Speech Pathology Australia lists communication milestones for children:
https://speechpathologyaustralia.cld.bz/Communication-Milestones-A4-sheets/1Link
It will also provide you with more information on when your child should have acquired their sounds. In addition, there is some really helpful information on language development milestones from 12months to 5 years too!
When should you see a Speech Pathologist (speechie)?
If your child is not able to produce sounds by the expected ages or if you have any concerns, you should seek help from a speechie. If your child has had conditions that influence speech and language development such as grommets, recurring ear infections or hearing difficulties, they are also more susceptible to speech sound acquisition difficulties.
Why is it so important to work on speech sounds?
Speech sounds are crucial for children communicating and being understood by friends, family and unfamiliar listeners. Speech sound difficulties can really impact later reading and writing development. The staff at Gameplan are leaders in providing language, literacy and speech intervention from Kinder to Year 12 and we know that literacy disorders and speech sound problems are related. Children who are poorly understood by others in preschool are far more likely to go on to have literacy challenges. If they can't say it properly, then they won't be able to read it or write it properly!
It's really important to support children to develop as many sounds as possible before starting foundation/prep to prevent later literacy difficulties and it's far easier to fix these problems earlier in life, than later when the problems become more ingrained.
What's not typical speech production?
There are some speech sound errors that are not considered part of typical development and warrants a Speech Pathologists involvement sooner than later.
Deleting the first sound in words e.g. cup>_up, cat>_at, dog>_og, nose>_ose, fish>_ish.
Backing sounds to "k" and "g" e.g. dough>go, dear>gear, tea>key, tap>cap,
Gliding of fricative sounds e.g. see>yee, fun>won, see>lee, sam>jam
Swapping sounds for a glottal sound e.g. bottle>bo_uhl, city>ci_ee
Merging 2 sounds into a new sound e.g. spoon>foon, grow>wo
Lateral lisp (slushy production) of “s”, “z”, “sh”, “ch”
Gameplan understands the important connection between early developing speech and later language and literacy development. We work with your child of all ages using proven, research backed practices. Come and organise your free initial consult today!
