While there is variation between children, if your child has a number of sounds they can’t say, it makes a difference to how well they are understood. If you are having trouble understanding your child (especially if they are over 3 years old), a speech assessment by a Speech-Language Therapist might be a good idea to find out what sounds are being changed or left out. I enjoy assessing children’s speech. Phone Old Villa Dental in Hamilton on 07 856 4116 to book an appointment with me.
The table below is an account of ages by which 75% of the children in a study pronounced individual consonants accurately. These norms were established for a population of Australian children by Kilminster and Laird (1978).
In column 3, the term ‘voiced’ refers to the vibration of the vocal cords while the sound is being made. The term ‘voiceless’ is applied to sounds that are made without vocal cord vibration. The terms fricative, glide, stop, nasal, liquid and affricate refer to the way the sounds are made, or the “manner of articulation”.
Bowen, C. (2011). Table4: Phonetic Development. Retrieved from http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/ on [13 March 2016].
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