Typical Speech Development

We need to understand typical speech development

in order to follow Auditory-Verbal practices.

Normal speech development encompasses:

• Crying • Cooing • Laughing• Vocal Play/Babbling • Echolalia • Jargoning • Words • Articulation

From birth -3 months you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Coo and goo when content Use differentiated cries Vocalize single syllables Blow bubbles

From 4-6 months you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use vocal play when playing Use speech like babbling to self and others Babble sounds with p, b, and m (putting lips

together) Babble some double syllables Begin to use nasal sounds Make urgent noises to prompt adults to action Vocalize pleasure and displeasure Stop vocalizing when an adult enters the room Coo, cluck, gurgle, and laugh

From 7-9 months you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Babble with sounds changing to include more consonants – n,t,d,b,p,z Babble with sounds like singing Reduplicate babbling –babababa Imitate intonation and speech sounds Use vocal play with intonation patterns

From 10 - 12 months you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Vocalize during play Vocalize into a mirror Use a vowel – consonant ratio of

2:1 Imitate intonation and phrase

patterns Use first words

From 1 – 1 ½ years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use Jargon Use echolalia Omit final consonants and some initial

consonants Be unintelligible except for a few words Use words produced with CV emerge Accurately imitate some words Use twenty-one phonemes

From 1 ½ - 2 years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use more words than jargon (usually gone by 2 years)

Ask questions by raising intonation at the end of a phrase

Improve intelligibility – 65% intelligible by 2 years

Develop words produced with CVC

From 2 – 2 ½ years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use twenty-five different phonemes Use beginning consonants Be 70% intelligible to listeners Omit final consonants Reduce consonant blends Substitute one consonant for another Emergent use of final consonants in

words Use lower and more stable pitch

From 2 ½ to 3 years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use some substitutions and distortion

of consonants Continue to improve intelligible

speech to 80 % Masters consonants: p,m,n,w,h

From 3 – 3 ½ years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use final consonants most of the time No longer producing the phonological

processes: consonant assimilation, doubling, final consonant deletion, prevocalic voicing, reduplication, unstressed syllable deletion, velar fronting

Mastery of 2/3 of adult speech sounds Use speech which is 75% intelligible

From 3 ½ to 4 years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Be intelligible with connected speech Continue to refine articulation skills Master consonants: b,d,k,g,f,v Continue the phononlogical processes

after 3 years of cluster reduction, final devoicing, gliding, and stopping

From 4 – 4 ½ years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use omissions and substitutions Be intelligible in connected speech

From 4 ½ to 5 years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Use most consonants sounds consistently and accurately,

thought not mastered in all contexts Have more errors in difficult

blends

From 5 to 6 years you can expect to see a typically developing child:

Master consonants: ng, r, l

By knowing and understanding typical speech development, we are able to target specific developmentally appropriate speech sounds and to provide the listening opportunities to develop those sounds.