It's a quietly stressful thing: your child is talking plenty, but people keep looking to you to “translate.” When a child is hard to understand for their age, the cause is often a speech sound disorder — and the good news is that it's one of the most treatable reasons families come to us.
What is a speech sound disorder?
Speech sound disorders come in two broad types. An articulation disorder is trouble producing specific individual sounds (a classic example is a lisp on “s”). A phonological disorder is when a child uses whole patterns of error — like dropping the ends off words, or swapping all the “k” and “g” sounds for “t” and “d.” Both make speech harder to understand; they're just different patterns underneath.
How clear should my child be by age?
A rough guide to how much a stranger should understand:
- By age 2: about half of what your child says.
- By age 3: roughly three-quarters.
- By age 4: most of what they say, even to people outside the family.
- By age 5: nearly all of it, with only a few later-developing sounds still settling.
Signs worth an evaluation
- Strangers frequently can't understand your child for their age.
- Predictable error patterns — leaving off sounds, replacing many sounds with one.
- Frustration when not understood, or giving up on talking.
- Errors that aren't improving with time.
Some sound errors are a normal part of development at certain ages. An evaluation tells you whether your child's errors are age-appropriate or worth treating.
Tired of translating for your child? An evaluation can tell you what's going on and how to help.
How speech therapy helps
Speech sound disorders respond very well to therapy. Your SLP targets the specific sounds or error patterns through playful, focused practice, and gives you home activities to speed things along. Many children make clear, noticeable progress. Speech therapy requires a referral from your child's primary care provider (faxed to 901-589-9001).