What is Speech
Speech is the physical production of sounds and sequences of sounds to make up words and sentences. It is made up of sounds that can be detected by the human ear and is highly complex.
When children are developing speech they make mistakes with sounds they use. There is a typical order in which each speech sound develops and a range of ages when a child should be able to say each sound correctly. A speech sound delay is when speech is developing in a normal sequential pattern but occurring later than typical. A speech disorder is when mistakes are not “typical” sound errors or unusual sound errors or error patterns.
Speech sound delays and disorders include problems with articulation (making sounds) and the phonological processes (sound patterns).
What is an Articulation Delay or Disorder?
This is where a child has difficulty making sounds. Sounds may be substituted for other sounds, omitted from the word or changed. When sound errors are occurring which are not “typical” for a child of that age, the child may have an articulation delay or disorder.
A child may have sound errors in their speech which are not considered a speech problem because they are part of the dialect or accent that the child is exposed to. For example, in many accents and dialect the “th” sound is replaced by the “f” sound.
Development of Sounds in children:
By 6 months: The child should be making cooing sounds (e.g. oo, ee, ah) and turns towards sounds and gives eye contact when hears adult speak make sound.
By 2 years: The child should be saying these sounds in words – p,b,m,n,t,d.
- Examples at this stage include: Car = “tar” and biscuit = “biddit”
- The ends of words are often missed out, e.g. tap = “ta”.
By 2.5-3.5 years: The child starts to use more sounds – k,g,f,s,y,h
- Examples of this stage include: shoe = “doo” or “soo”; star = “dar”. Speech is often unclear to adults who don’t know the child well.
By 3.5- 4.5 years: the child will start to say – sh, ch, j, z, l, v.
- Also beginning to use two consonant sounds together, e.g. “cl” (“clown”); “st” (“star”).
By 5 years: The child’s speech should be mostly clear and easy to understand, but some immaturities may still be noted (e.g. with “r” and “th” sounds).
What is a Phonological Delay or Disorder?
This is a pattern of sound errors occurring in a child’s speech. For example, a child may substitute all sounds made at the back of the mouth (e.g. the “k” and the “g’ sound with those made at the front of the mouth e.g. “t,” or “d’ sound). This means that “cat” becomes “tat” and “go” becomes “dough”. This is a very normal speech pattern for young children. However, it is expected that by the age of approximately 3.5 years, it should no longer be occurring. If a child is continuing to make this type of speech error beyond that age they may have a phonological delay.
Some children make patterns of sound errors that are not “typical” within normal speech development. One example is replacing sounds made at the front of the mouth (e.g. “t’ and “d”) with sounds made at the back of the mouth (“k” and “g”) so “tea” becomes “key”, “toe” becomes “go”. If these types of sound pattern errors are occurring the child may be diagnosed as having a phonological disorder.
Phonological Development in Children:
| Phonological Process | Description | Age it occurs |
|---|---|---|
| Final Consonant Deletion | This is where final consonants are omitted from words (e.g. “hat” becomes “ha_” etc) | ?2 years |
| Voicing | This is where sounds made with no voice are replaced with voiced sounds (e.g. “car” becomes “dar, “tea” becomes “dea” etc) | 2-2.11 years |
| Syllable re-duplication | Complete or partial repetition of a stressed syllable (e.g. “bottle” becomes “bo bo” etc) | ?2 years |
| Weak syllable deletion | This is where non-stressed syllables are deleted from words (e.g. “elephant” becomes “ephant” etc) | 2-3.11 years |
| Stopping | This is where sounds made with a long airflow are replaced by sounds made with a stopped airflow (e.g. “sea” becomes “tea”, “shoe” becomes “to” etc) | 2.0-3.5 years |
| Fronting | This is where sounds made with the tongue hitting the back of the mouth (e.g. ‘k’ and ‘g’ are replaced with sounds made at the front of the mouth (e.g. ‘t’ and ‘d’) so “car” becomes “tar”, “key” becomes “tea” etc. | 2-3.11 years |
| Fronting of the “ch”,’j’ and “sh” sounds | This is where the tongue is moved forward in the mouth so the “sh”,”ch” and ‘j’ sound become “t”,”d”,”s” or “z”. | 2-3.11 Years |
| Gliding | This is where the “l” and the “r” sound are replaced with the “w” or the “y” sound | 2-5.11 years |
| De-affrication | This is where the affricate sounds “sh”, “ch” and “j” are replaced with “t”. “d” or “s” sound | 2-4.11 years |
| Consonant Cluster Reduction | This is where clusters of consonants in words are reduced by one or more consonants (e.g. “brick” become “bick”, “clown” becomes “cown” etc) | 2.0-4.11 years |
Indicators of Speech Delay or Disorder
- May have limited amount of sounds she or he is using.
- May have difficulty linking together more than 1-2 sounds.
- Speech is difficult to understand to the unfamiliar listener.
- Shows frustrations at not being understood by others.
- May have difficulties with blowing and sucking from a straw.
- Is dribbling beyond normal age.
- Messy eating habits beyond what is expected for age.
- Speech contains sound substitutions and errors.
- Speech is less clear than most of their peers.
Common challenges for children with speech delay or disorder
- Getting messages across to other people.
- Interacting successfully with their peers.
- Regular breakdowns in communication with others.
- May have difficulties with reading and writing.
- Being teased by their peers.
Management strategies to help support the child at home and school:
- Providing information to those involved with the child about exactly what speech sound errors are occurring so that they are better able to understand the child’s speech.
- Establishing an individualized plan with parents/carers an individualised plan of small achievable speech sound goals to help develop the child’s speech skills.
- Providing the family with strategies, activities and ideas that can be used during the day to help reduce the sound errors occurring in the child’s speech.
- Providing parents with strategies on how to manage situations when they have not understood what their child has said.
- For children where their speech is highly unintelligible using gesture and visual systems to help support speech so that communication with others is more effective.
- Providing educational staff with information to be incorporated an education plan and/or liasing to implement ideas, suggestions and activities to help improve the child’s speech skills.
- Speech Pathology therapy approaches and activities that can support the individual or their carers include:
- Listening to sounds and being able to hear differences between sounds.
- Demonstrating how to produce sounds correctly and learning how to say sounds by themselves, in short words in longer words, sentences, conversation.
- Using visual cues to help elicit sounds.
- For the child with a phonological difficulty, teaching them about the pattern of speech errors that is occurring and focusing on reducing that pattern of speech errors.
- Using fun play based activities or games to help motivate the child to learn new sounds.
Indicators of Speech Delay or Disorder
- May have limited amount of sounds she or he is using.
- May have difficulty linking together more than 1-2 sounds.
- Speech is difficult to understand to the unfamiliar listener.
- Shows frustrations at not being understood by others.
- May have difficulties with blowing and sucking from a straw.
- Is dribbling beyond normal age.
- Messy eating habits beyond what is expected for age.
- Speech contains sound substitutions and errors.
- Speech is less clear than most of their peers.
Common challenges for children with speech delay or disorder
- Getting messages across to other people.
- Interacting successfully with their peers.
- Regular breakdowns in communication with others.
- May have difficulties with reading and writing.
- Being teased by their peers.
Management strategies to help support the child at home and school:
- Providing information to those involved with the child about exactly what speech sound errors are occurring so that they are better able to understand the child’s speech.
- Establishing an individualized plan with parents/carers an individualised plan of small achievable speech sound goals to help develop the child’s speech skills.
- Providing the family with strategies, activities and ideas that can be used during the day to help reduce the sound errors occurring in the child’s speech.
- Providing parents with strategies on how to manage situations when they have not understood what their child has said.
- For children where their speech is highly unintelligible using gesture and visual systems to help support speech so that communication with others is more effective.
- Providing educational staff with information to be incorporated an education plan and/or liasing to implement ideas, suggestions and activities to help improve the child’s speech skills.
Speech Pathology therapy approaches and activities that can support the individual or their carers include:
- Listening to sounds and being able to hear differences between sounds.
- Demonstrating how to produce sounds correctly and learning how to say sounds by themselves, in short words in longer words, sentences, conversation.
- Using visual cues to help elicit sounds.
- For the child with a phonological difficulty, teaching them about the pattern of speech errors that is occurring and focusing on reducing that pattern of speech errors.
- Using fun play based activities or games to help motivate the child to learn new sounds.