Speech delay
What is speech delay?
Speech is the verbal expression of language and includes articulation (the way sounds and words are formed). As with all other skills, children will develop their speech skills at different rates. There can be a large amount of variation in the age at which children begin talking and learn to produce different speech sounds. A child with speech delay will be learning to produce these sounds at a slower rate than their peers. Although these children develop their speech sounds at different rates, they will go through the same stages of speech sound development
What might it look like if my child has speech delay?
Top tips for developing speech sounds in children:
Speech is the verbal expression of language and includes articulation (the way sounds and words are formed). As with all other skills, children will develop their speech skills at different rates. There can be a large amount of variation in the age at which children begin talking and learn to produce different speech sounds. A child with speech delay will be learning to produce these sounds at a slower rate than their peers. Although these children develop their speech sounds at different rates, they will go through the same stages of speech sound development
What might it look like if my child has speech delay?
- Most children will be intelligible to their parents by age 3 and to strangers by the age of 4. That is, the listener should be able to understand what the child is saying. If you or others are having difficulty understanding your child, they may have delayed speech
- Your child may substitute sounds in their speech for others that are ‘easier’ to produce (e.g. cat may become “tat”)
- Your child may use the same word to refer to a variety of different things and have difficulty distinguishing between words in their speech
Top tips for developing speech sounds in children:
- Try not to correct your child or tell them they’ve got it wrong. Instead, repeat what your child says how an adult would say it (e.g. child: “look it's a pider”, adult: “oh yes, a spider”). Don’t put pressure on your child to repeat it the correct way.
- React to what your child has said, rather than how they have said it
- Be honest: If you haven’t understood what your child has said, don’t pretend. Repeat back to the child the parts that you did hear so that they do not have to repeat their whole sentence again