Children’s speech develops gradually throughout childhood, beginning with just vowel type sounds, all the way through to complex sound sequences. Although all children develop speech sounds at a slightly different rate, there are some generalisations that can be made about when children develop specific sounds.
Children with delayed speech often present with ‘processes’ – patterns of speech errors. These processes would still be typical in younger children but have not resolved at the expected age. The table below summarises when typical speech processes usually resolve.
Your speech therapist will discuss with you whether your child’s speech difficulties can be supported at home or whether your child would benefit from some speech and language therapy. They will take into account a range of factors, including the number of processes your child is using, how delayed their speech is and how clear their speech is within conversation.
| Speech process | Definition | Approximate age process is no longer seen |
| Final consonant deletion | Missing off a consonant at the end of a word. For example:
cat → ca_ |
Two years |
| Voicing and devoicing | Confusing ‘noisy’ and ‘quiet’ sounds For example:
pig → big dog → dock |
Three years |
| Consonant harmony | Making a sound more similar to another sound in the word. For example:
mine → mime |
Three years |
| Stopping | Replacing a ‘long’ sound with a ‘short’ sound. For example:
food → pood sun → tun |
Three years, five months |
| Fronting | Replacing a ‘back’ sound with a ‘front’ sound. For example:
car → tar |
Four years |
| Weak syllable deletion | Missing off a ‘quieter’ syllable in a word. For example:
banana → nana |
Four years |
| Cluster reduction | Missing off a consonant when there are two or three consonants together. For example:
snake → nake |
Five years |
| Gliding | Replacing the sounds ‘r’ and ‘l’ with ‘w’ and ‘y’. For example:
red → wed like → yike |
Six years |