5. Developing clearer speech
Sometimes children can have difficulty with their speech i.e. with learning to say the sounds in words clearly.
In typical speech and language development children will often make errors in how they say certain speech sounds. For example, they may have difficulty saying the first sound in the word “car” and may instead say “tar”.
Speech sounds usually get clearer as a child’s language develops and they start speaking in longer sentences.
In typical speech development children can have difficulty saying certain speech sounds such as ‘th’ or ‘r’ sounds up until they are 6 or 7 years old or older.
For children who have difficulties using spoken language it may take them longer for their speech to become clearer. As their spoken language progresses to the point where they are able to speak in sentences then we would expect their speech to become clearer too.
If a child is having difficulty attending and listening to others, understanding instructions or speaking in sentences then we would usually focus on those things first before focussing on speech.
Top Tips
- If your child makes an error in how they say a word but you know the word they are trying to say. For example, they say “tar” instead of “car” just repeat the word they have said but with the sound errors corrected.
- Don’t ask your child to repeat the word as this will interrupt the flow of conversation. It is enough for your child to just hear and see how you say the word.
- If you cannot understand the word/s your child is saying try and support them to find another way to get their message across e.g. by showing you in some way or using a gesture.
Activities that can help children with their speech:
- Singing rhyming songs
- Looking at rhyming books
- Clapping out the beats (syllables) in words e.g. tomato: “to-ma-to”.
- Listening to words that contain the same first sound such as a ‘k’ sound e.g. key, car, cup, carrot, comb. You could collect together objects/pictures that all start with the same sound and take turns to pull them out of a bag or box and to name them. Talk about the first sound of the words.
Last updated20 Jan 2025