When Should I Be Concerned About My Child's Speech?

To start things off I am going to give some info about articulation (sound production or the way we say sounds). I receive a lot of questions about sound errors and when are they developmentally appropriate. Please see the chart at the end of this post for a nice visual of speech sound development. A printable PDF version of the chart will be available on my website! Coming Soon!

Early sounds:  all vowels, m, b, p, t, n, w, h (sounds that develop before age 3)

3-4 years old sounds: d, k, g, f, y, ng

5-6 year old sounds: v, j, l

7-8 year old sounds: sh, ch, dz (as in measure), s, z, th, r 


By 8 years old most children have developed all the speech sounds in the English language.
If your child is not using the above sounds correctly by the ages listed, they may need some help. Keep in mind each child is unique in their development of speech! The chart below gives a general range of speech development, if you are concerned seek out the opinion of a licenced and certified SLP! Coming soon on my website I will have tips to help elicit (how to help them say it) each sound in the English Language (eventually will have Spanish added as well).

Adapted Chart by Amanda Schaumburg M.S.CCC-SLP   Sources:   Smit, Et. Al. "The Iowa Articulation Norms Project and its Nebraska Replication" Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders.  Volume 55, 779-798, November, 1990        Sander, Eric K. "When Are Speech Sounds Learned?" JSHD, 37  (February 1972).

Phoneme

yrs:mth

3:0

3:6

4:0

4:6

5:0

5:6

6:0

6:6

7:0

7:6

8:0

/m/

/w/

/p/

/b/

/h/

/n/

/d/

/t/

/k/

/g/

/f/

/ng/

/y/

/j/

/v/

/l/

/sh/

/ch/

/th/ voiced

/dz/

/s/

/z/

/r/

/th/