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Speech Sound Development

Speech is how we say sounds and words. We use our tongue, teeth, lips, jaw, and other oral muscles to articulate specific sounds for words. For example, we need to be able to say the "r" sound so we can say "red" instead of "wed."

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by age 2

parents understand at least 50% of what the child says

child may leave off final consonants, ex: ba for "ball"

consonant sounds: P M B T D N W H

by age 3

parents understand at least 75% of what the child says

child should say many types of word shapes, ex: CV (no), VC (eat), CVC (pop), CVCV (mama)

consonant sounds: K G F Y

by age 4

parents understand almost everything the child says

child produces 3 to 4 syllable words

consonant sounds: S Z L V 'SH' 'CH' J

by age 5

parents understand 100% of what the child says

child produces S blends (STop) & L blends (BLow)

consonant sounds: R

by age 6

parents understand 100% of what the child says

child produces R blends (TRuck)

consonant sounds: 'TH'

Sources:
McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27, 1546-1571. doi:10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100
McLeod, S. (2009). Speech sound acquisition. In J. E. Bernthal, N. W. Bankson & P. Flipsen Jnr (Eds.), Articulation and phonological disorders: Speech sound disorders in children (6th ed., pp. 63-120 + 385-405). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Bowen, C. (2011). 
American Speech Language Hearing Association (https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/speech-and-language/)
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