Are you wondering if your child’s difficulty making certain sounds is something they’ll grow out of?
What is Articulation
Articulation refers to how a speaker shapes air from the lungs to produce speech sounds. Speech is made up of a variety of consonant and vowel sounds, and each of these is a phoneme. A phoneme is the smallest unit in a language that can differentiate one word from another, and while English phonemes don’t exactly map onto English letters, they are pretty close.; For example, the /s/ sound is represented by the letter “s” and sometimes “c.” The /k/ sound is sometimes spelled with “k”, sometimes spelled with “c” (like in “cat”), and in /kw/ combinations, we use “qu.” And, did you know there are two “th” sounds in English? If you say “thigh” and “thy” you’ll notice the difference. So how is it that anyone is able to learn these rules?!
When Should Kids Make All the Sounds Correctly?
Children develop the phonology of their language starting from birth until they’re in the early school age years. While there’s variation in when kids master certain sounds, by and large we expect them to have adult-like speech by the time they’re about 8 years old. If kids are older than age 8 and still have speech errors, we call this a persistent speech sound disorder, and these kids would benefit from speech therapy services, if they’re not already enrolled.
When Does a Child Need Speech Therapy?
There are also less typical types of errors that kids sometimes make. Unusual errors, like substituting a /k/ for a /t/ sound, occur less frequently as a developmental type of error, and are more commonly seen in children with underlying speech and language issues. For this reason, we may start treatment as soon as this type of error is identified.
Conclusion
Talking with an SLP is the best way to determine what your child’s error is and whether it’s something they’re likely to grow out of, or need therapy to address!