Speech
Visit this page first to learn about the difference between Speech and Language. If you are concerned about your child’s speech production, take 10 - 15 minutes to observe your child and consider the following.
- Intelligibility
- Speech sounds
- Saying Tat for Cat; Tootie for Cookie; Tar for Car
- Saying Do for Go; Dum for Gum; Doal for Goal
- Word length
- Word shapes
- Disfluency / Stuttering
- Syllable repetitions (e.g., m-m-m-my)
- Syllable prolongations (e.g., mmmmy)
- Blocks or freezing before syllables (e.g., [pause] my)
Intelligibility is the percentage of speech that can be understood by an unfamiliar listener. For example, if your child was speaking to a stranger, how much do you think they would understand? Please refer to the table below for intelligibility expectations based on age.
What speech sounds can your child produce? Are they clear, or do they sound distorted? Can they produce them in all positions of the word? (e.g., Can they produce the /f/ sound in finger, office and puff?) Please refer to the table below for speech sound expectations based on age.
Does your child make consistent sound substitutions (e.g., replacing all /k/ sounds with /t/ sounds and all /g/ sounds with /d/ sounds). For example, the child may make the following word errors, where the sound is consistently replaced by another sound.
Can your child produce multi-syllabic words? (e.g., hockey, telephone, bumblebee)
Can your child produce a variety of different word shapes? Please refer to the visual below for examples of different word shapes.
Does your child have disfluent speech such as:
Children who stutter may have one or all of the characteristics.
If you have any questions or concerns in the above areas, please connect with us!
