The ages and stages of children’s speech development
Preschool children: 3 to 5 years Preschool children start to use much longer sentences, yet their speech should still be understood by unfamiliar people (outside of the family) about 75% of the time. By 5 years of age, anyone (including unfamiliar listeners) should be able to understand the child’s speech in conversation 95-100% of the time.
What can most children do?
• By 4 years, children can say most sounds correctly (e.g., m, n, h, w, p, b, t, d, k, g, ng, f, y, s, z, ch, j, sh, l). They can use many consonant clusters, which are combinations of two or more sounds (e.g., tw, sp, gl). Children may use clusters at the start (e.g., blue) or end of words (e.g., hand). Also, children will say most vowel sounds in words correctly (e.g., ay, oh, ee).
• Between 4-5 years, preschool children start to develop skills that will be important for learning to read and write (called “pre-literacy skills”). They become aware that spoken words can rhyme (e.g., cat – bat), and can be broken into syllables/beats (e.g., am-bu-lance).
What do many children still find difficult?
• Some sounds are later to develop and children may still have difficulty with them at this age. For instance, 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). Some children may still produce “s” as “th” (e.g., a lisp)
What can parents do to help?
If parents are concerned about their child’s speech development, they are advised to have their child’s hearing checked by an audiologist as hearing is important in learning how to say sounds correctly. Also, parents can visit a speech pathologist if concerned about their child’s speech development. In particular, a visit to the speech pathologist is recommended if children cannot be understood, if they are frustrated with attempts to communicate, if their speech appears very effortful, if they are using very few words, or if they are not using sounds at the start of words (e.g., saying “ish” for fish).
The information above was partly extracted from Speech Pathology Australia's website. For more information, please visit - https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/SPAweb/Resources_for_the_Public/Fact_Sheets/SPAweb/Resources_for_the_Public/Fact_Sheets/Fact_Sheets.aspx?hkey=e0ad33fb-f640-45b1-8a06-11ed2b73f293
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