QUESTION…
I work with two brothers and am worried about their speech development.
The elder child is four years old and even his parents find him difficult to understand. When talking, he’ll say ‘big’ for ‘pig’, he misses off the beginning of words and finds it difficult to copy sounds.
The younger brother is aged three. I understand most of what he says but he cannot make ‘r’ and ‘l’ sounds. He’ll say ‘wabbit’ instead of ‘rabbit’ and ‘lellow’ instead of ‘yellow’.
I’m wondering if I should be concerned.
It can be hard to know when children are having difficulties with their speech as it is a complex process that requires co-ordination and development of muscles in the mouth. Most children will be seven years old before they have mastered all of the speech sounds.
As part of the development of speech sounds, there are a few ‘errors’ that most children will make. It is important, therefore, to know what to expect at different ages and when to seek further support.
UP TO 2½ YEARS
The first sounds that children master are vowels. Between the ages of one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half years, children will start adding sounds such as ‘p’, ‘b’, ‘m’, ‘n’ and ‘w’. These additional sounds allow children to start using a few words consistently, although they are likely to miss off the final sounds in some words. This means that ‘ball’ might become ‘ba’.
Another feature of early speech is repeated syllables. Flower may become ‘fafa’. As the number of sounds is limited, early speech can be difficult to understand, although by two years of age, family members will understand around half of what a child is saying.
2½ TO 3 YEARS
A child’s speech becomes increasingly clearer during this period, so that by three years old, even unfamiliar adults can understand most of what a child is saying. This is a significant milestone. In this period, a child will be developing many more sounds including ‘t’, ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘k’ and ‘h’.
While learning ‘k’ and ‘g’ sounds, this age group may change these sounds to a ‘t’ or ‘d’. So ‘cup’ may become ‘tup’ and ‘go’ may become ‘dough’. At this age, many children will be using ‘dat’ rather than ‘that’. This is normal as most children won’t master the ‘th’ sound until between five and six years of age. Children are also likely to still be leaving off the last sound in a word at this age.
3 TO 4 YEARS
Between three and four years old, children will be learning to use ‘long’ sounds such as ‘s’ and ‘f’. When mastering these sounds, it is normal for children to use a ‘b’ or ‘p’ instead of ‘f’. This means that ‘fish’ may be said as ‘bish’. In the same way, ‘s’ may be pronounced as ‘t’.
Children may also attempt to say ‘y’, although this sound is often said as ‘w’ or ‘l’ when children first try to say it. Likewise, you may start to hear a child using an ‘l’ sound.
However, it may take children up to the age of seven before they can make this sound properly, so don’t worry if you’re hearing a child say ‘leaf’ as ‘weaf’. Up until four years old, children sometimes shorten longer words, so potato may become ‘tato’.
4 TO 5 YEARS
Between four and five years old, children will generally develop some of the more complex speech sounds. Listen out for sounds such as ‘z’, ‘ch’, ‘sh’, and ‘j’. As children learn these long sounds, do not be surprised if you hear ‘errors’ such as ‘tair’ for ‘chair’, ‘dip’ for ‘zip’ and ‘dam’ for ‘jam’.
At this stage, children are also likely to try s-blends such as ‘spoon’, ‘stair’, ‘sky’, although it is still common for them to say ‘soon’ for ‘spoon’ or ‘nake’ for ‘snake’.
You may hear some children attempting an ‘r’ sound. This is a difficult sound and a child can be seven or eight years of age before they are able to say it correctly.
When to be concerned
Up until children are two-and-a-half years old, it is difficult to know whether or not a child is developing difficulties in making speech sounds. So, if you have concerns about a child’s speech development, contact your local speech and language team.
After the age of two-and-a-half, there are some signs that might indicate that a child may need the support of a speech and language therapist.
These include:
- Changing sounds, including ‘air’, ‘ow’ and ‘oo’ and ‘ar’, in words. For example, ‘bear’ is said as ‘bee’, ‘pie’ is said as ‘pay’.
- Using a limited number of sounds for the child’s age – for example, using only ‘b’ or vowel sounds such as ‘ee’, ‘aah’, ‘ooh’.
- Missing off the beginning of words – for example, saying ‘ig’ instead of ‘pig’.
- Producing sounds that are not recognisable as English – this applies also to bilingual children.
- Being unable to copy early sounds such as ‘p’, ‘b’, ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘t’, ‘d’ when an adult models them.
- Speech that is difficult to understand for the child’s age, even if they are talking a lot – for example, the child’s parents are unable to understand their three-year-old.
- Talking through their nose so speech sounds nasal.
- Being unable to make sounds they should be able to make for their age – for example, the child is aged four and cannot make ‘m’ and ‘n’ sounds.
CASE STUDY
Given these indicators, and keeping in mind the typical pattern in which speech sounds develop, it would be worth the setting contacting its local speech and language therapy team to discuss the elder brother in the case study, because:
- he is missing off the beginning of words
- he is unable to copy the early sounds ‘p’ and ‘b’
- his parents are struggling to understand him.
As for his three-year-old brother, he is making the sort of errors that are typical of children of this age – for example, struggling to say ‘r’ and ‘l’. As with all children, the setting should monitor his speech and support his speech development with a range of strategies (see below).
SUPPORTING CHILDREN’S SPEECH DEVELOPMENT
There are some strategies that you can use and share with parents to support children as they develop speech.
- Limit the use of dummies, especially when children wake up.
- If the child says a word incorrectly, don’t correct them. Instead model the word for them. For instance, if the child says, ‘My tar is red’, say, ‘Yes, your car is red, you’ve got a red car.’
- If you haven’t understood the child, see if they can show you what they are trying to say by finding it. Then name the object.
- Play at the same level as the child and look at them when you talk so that they can watch your mouth and lips as you speak.
- Keep background noise to a minimum and create some quiet spaces in which the child can play and spend time with you.
- Watch out for signs that a child is not hearing fully.
MORE INFORMATION
- A concise speech sound development chart can be found at: https://bit.ly/2JihaEn
- Part 3 of this series – about phonological awareness – will be published in the 9 July issue of Nursery World
Penny Tassoni is an author and early years consultant
Anne-Marie Tassoni is a specialist speech and language therapist, Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust
