It is always exciting when your child begins to communicate using words. What is normal speech development?

Child Speech Development

What is normal speech development?

It is always exciting when your child begins to communicate using words. Naturally the words are initially unclear and an approximation of the real word. For instance ‘do’ might be ‘go’ and ‘doddy’ might be ‘doggy’. As children acquire more words and begin to put words together to formulate little sentences, usually occurring from 18months, parent often wonder what is the approximate age that sounds develop. What is normal speech development for children?

The earliest sounds that children produce accurately are the sounds we typically associate with babbling. These sounds include ‘m, p, b, w, n, t, d’. These sounds are easily made by the child putting their lips together and putting their tongue behind their teeth. The lip sounds are often the first to develop as your baby can see you produce those sounds and imitates your mouth movements.

Typically certain sounds develop before others. The following is the average age at which the speech sound listed below is accurate 75% of the time in a child’s speech.

3 years	h, j, w, m, n, ng, p, k, t, b, g, d , z
3 years 6 months	f
4 years	l, sh, ch
4 years 6 months	dg, s, z
5 years	r
6 years	v
7 years 6 months	th soft
8 years	th hard

Another indicator of if a child’s speech is developing normally is to determine how clearly the child is understood by their parents. By 18months of age a child’s speech is intelligible 25% of the time, by 24 months a child’s speech is intelligible 50 – 75 % of the time and then by 3 years of age a child’s speech should be understood 75-100% of the time. By 3years a child should also be easily understood by an unfamiliar adult most of the time. Not all sounds are said correctly, but the child can be understood. Their speech is child-like not adult-like.

More Information

Explore other AusBusiness Review articles in category "Child Development".