Articulation
Articulation is a term used to describe the process of making sounds into words and sentences. Speaking is a complex process that involves precision planning, coordination, and movement of the jaw, tongue, teeth, lips, palate, cheeks and vocal chords. The ability to connect words together into sentences clearly understood is referred to as intelligible speech.
If a child’s speech is not clearly understood it is referred to as having articulation errors. It is common for errors to occur at various ages and stages of development. A toddler might start out using “top” for “stop” or “wun” for “run” but most will soon outgrow the pattern or error after a brief period. A dialect of a region or culture is not considered an articulation error.
A parent of a child that continues to have articulation errors beyond those of there typically developing peers may need to consult their pediatrician or a speech-language pathologist.
Vocal Development
0-3 months: Typically infants start to “coo” and have soft throaty sounds.
3-8 months: Babbling begins with repeated syllables, “mama.” Babbling begins as random sounds and then into intentional sounds that are the foundation of spoken language. The babbling changes from the repetitive sounds combinations into syllables that change sounds such as “ba-da, ma-mi” with pitch and intonation changes.
12-18 months: First words are often heard around a baby’s first birthday and then rapidly develop. Words and jargon may be mixed. At this level toddlers will imitate sounds in their repertoire.
18-20 months: Two word combinations begin and have a 20 or more word vocabulary.
Sound Development:
3 years of age: The sounds p, m, h, n, w, b are heard in the child’s speech and can be imitated. A child’s peech should be understood by most listenters.
4-5 years of age: The sounds k, g, d, t, y, l, ng, r, f, s ch, sh and z are used in words and can be imitated by the child.
Children may vary in their acquisition of sounds by as much as 2 years.
Types of Articulation Errors
Subsitutions: A sound is substituted for another sound such as saying “tat” for the word “cat or “gog” for “dog.”
Ommissions: Leaving a sound off or omitting a sound such as leaving off the beginning, middle or end of words. Examples include saying “og” for “dog” or “ba” for “ball” or “bu-er” for “butter.”
Distortions: A sound is said inaccurately but it sounds similar to the intended sound it is called a distortion.
How you can help a child say sounds correctly
Set a good example and don’t interrupt the child constantly to “correct’ their speech. Be a good speech model and say the word correctly emphasizing the missed or incorrect sound. If the child points and says “Tar!” for “car” respond by saying “Yes, a c-ar!” and put emphasis on the hard c or “kuh” sound. If the child tries to repeat the word give them lot’s of praise even if it still came out wrong to encourage them to try again keeping the exchange positive and rewarding.