Phonological Processes: Common Toddler Talking “Mistakes” Speech Therapists Aren’t Worried About
Have you ever thought about how complex speaking is? It’s amazing all the things that have to be in place to produce speech that other people understand–from coordinating the breath in your diaphragm, air traveling past your vocal folds, and coordinating the movements of your lips, tongue, teeth, jaw…it’s a lot! So it’s normal that kids take little “shortcuts”—called phonological processes—that make speech easier while they’re learning it.
In this post, we give you insight into the most common phonological processes toddlers use, when they typically go away, and how to know if the speech errors your child is making are typical or not.
Toddlers Can Be Hard To Understand!
Toddlers do a lot of communication gymnastics to help themselves as they learn to properly pronounce all speech sounds. These little tricks they use can be super cute, a little confusing, and sometimes, very tough to understand because they limit what we call their intelligibility, or their ability to be understood.
It’s pretty common to not be able to understand everything your toddler says. Here’s what we expect based on typical development milestones and averages:
18 Months: 25% Intelligible
19-24 Months: 25% to 50% Intelligible
2-3 Years: 50% to 75% Intelligible
If You Understand Your Toddler Really Well…
Because you’re with your child the majority of the time, you are an expert decoder! Your first instinct might be to say you can understand them 90% of the time. So, sometimes it’s good to ask a grandparent, babysitter, or somebody who’s not around them quite as much as you how they would rate your child’s speech, too—just to be sure.
And remember, just like everything else in development, there’s a range for what’s considered typical. So just like some kids sit up earlier than others, kids your child’s age may say some sounds more clearly than yours, and that’s okay!
If You Struggle To Understand Your Toddler…
If you don’t feel like an expert decoder of your child’s toddler speech, know that that’s okay, too. Many parents struggle to understand their little ones. Read through the common speech “mistakes” toddlers make, which we’ve listed below, and find out if their speech quirks fall within what’s considered typical. If they do, you don’t need to worry too much. We have some ideas for how to help them below! (And you can always seek out further guidance from your pediatrician or an SLP!)
Common Speech “Mistakes” Toddlers Make (And When They Typically Go Away)
All kids, speech delay or not, are going to use phonological processes: patterns of sound errors that typically developing kids use to simplify speech as they’re learning to talk. The majority of these patterns are going to disappear by age 3.
Your little one may be simplifying their speech in these completely age-appropriate ways:
#1 Final Consonant Deletion
Example: Saying “Mo” instead of “More”
Typical Until: 39 Months
Many children will leave off (or delete) the last sound of a given word to simplify it. That means saying “cu” for cup—leaving off the /p/ sound. It could also be them saying “ha” instead of a hat, and leaving off the final /t/ sound. Final consonant deletion is completely typical and not an issue at all, as long as it disappears by 39 months!
#2 Consonant Cluster Reduction
Example: Saying “Tar” instead of “Star”
Typical Until: 4 Years
When a word has two consonants right next to each other—the way the s and p are in ‘spoon’—little ones will often pick one sound to say and leave out the other one. They might stay ‘poon’ or ‘soon’ for ‘spoon’, or ‘tar’ instead of ‘star’. That’s super typical until kids are about four! At that point, we’d expect to see them using the correct production.
#3 Fronting
Example: “Do” instead of “Go”
Typical Until: 3 ½ Years
Fronting happens when your toddler makes speech sounds that are supposed to be made in the back of their throat (like the /c/ in ‘cup’ or the /g/ in ‘gulp’) in the front of their mouth. It can sound like them saying ‘tup’ for ‘cup’ or ‘do’ instead of ‘go’.
They’re using the sound made in the front of the mouth—the /t/ or the /d/ in our examples—to simplify speech, because those back-of-throat sounds can be trickier to figure out for them! OR it could be that they get more input from the sounds made in their throat. Don’t worry too much if your child is fronting right now, it should disappear by the time they turn three and a half.
#4 Stopping
Example: Saying “Pish” for Fish
Typical Until: 3 - 3 ½ Years
Certain speech sounds require breath or airflow. Sounds like /f, /v/, /s/, /sh/. With stopping, little ones will use a sound that does not have airflow in place of a sound that should. For example, they might say ‘pish’ instead of ‘fish’, because the /p/ sound doesn’t have airflow but the /f/ does.
One of my (Katie’s) little ones said “bench bies” for french fries, “stopping” the /f/ sound and making it a /b/. Stopping usually disappears by the time they’re between three and three and a half, depending on the airflow sound we’re talking about.
#5 Assimilation
Example: Saying “Titty Tat” instead of Kitty Cat
Typical Until: 3 Years, 9 Months
Assimilation happens when your child replaces one consonant in a word with a consonant that appears somewhere else in that same word, like when a little one says “titty tat” for kitty cat or “mime” for mine.
Often, toddlers do this because they’re anticipating the consonant sound they know is coming up later. (This is what happens with “titty tat”.) Or, it can happen because they’re continuing to use a sound they already used at the beginning of a word, carrying that sound further than they should. (Like we see happening with “mime” for mine)
Both examples of assimilation are typical, and most children resolve this on their own by the time they are 3 years and 9 months old.
#6 Syllable Reduction
Example: Saying “Nana” for Banana
Typical Until: 3 Years, 9 Months
Toddlers use syllable reduction to shorten longer words that they might find tricky to say. A common example is saying “nana” instead of banana. In that example, your toddler is making a 3-syllable word into a 2-syllable word. They can do this for any longer word, like saying “nilla” instead of vanilla, or anything else along these lines! Syllable reduction isn’t usually something you need to worry about, it’s super common until kids turn four.
#7 Gliding
Example: Saying “Yight” for Light
Typical Until: 5 Years
Gliding is what’s happening if your toddler uses an “L” or “R” sound instead of a “W” or “Y”. They might say “wamp” instead of lamp or “yight” instead of light. They may also say “caw” instead of car or “wabbit” instead of rabbit. This phonological process is very common. (And is often endearing!) We’d typically expect it to go away on its own by age five.
What To Do If Your Child Uses These Phonological Processes
#1 Emphasize The Sounds They’re Not Using
One of the easiest ways to help your child move on from these phonological processes is to emphasize the sounds they’re omitting—then move on. This tip is most successful when you don’t add pressure or have an expectation for imitation. All you do is draw their awareness to the sound they missed.
So, if your little one says, “My ha!” leaving off the /t/ sound at the end, you can say, “Yes, your red haT!’ and keep going with your day. You’re not asking them to repeat the word, you’re just drawing attention to the fact that there’s a /t/ sound at the end of that word. Same thing for the word ‘blocks’. If they said, “Bocks fell down!” you could say, “Yes, your bLocks fell down!” before moving on.
#2 Draw Attention To Your Mouth
Your child will be more successful if they can watch the way your mouth moves to create a certain sound than they would be without that input. So one of our favorite tips is to hold an object near your mouth as you say the word. For example, if they say "nana" for banana, you could draw on tip #1, emphasizing the sound they left off AND drawing attention to your mouth, by holding the banana up near your face and saying, “BA na na! Ya, here's your banana!”
#3 Talk To Your Pediatrician or SLP
If your child is making these speech “mistakes” past the age where we’d expect them to resolve on their own, or if their speech is particularly difficult to understand, talk to your pediatrician or reach out to a local speech-language pathologist. An individualized speech evaluation is the best way to give yourself an accurate assessment and understanding of your child’s communication skills—plus tips and tricks specific to your child!
If you ever have concerns, reach out to a speech therapist in your area for an evaluation. As your child’s caregiver, your concerns are completely valid. And you deserve to get the support and answers you need to feel confident guiding your child’s development.
If the cost of speech therapy is a consideration, you can typically self-refer to an early intervention program, too!
Related: The Importance of Early Intervention
#4 Get A Formal Hearing Evaluation
Hearing is a funny thing when it comes to little ones! Many parents think they would 100% know if their child struggled with it. They say things like, “I know my child hears me because they turn their head toward a sound, or they follow directions just fine.” If you’re thinking these things too, that’s normal!
The thing that makes speech and hearing more complicated than that, though, is that there are so many different frequencies our children need to hear to fully utilize and understand all speech sounds. So an /s/ sound can be harder to hear than a /k/ sound—things like that. The goal of a hearing evaluation is to make sure your child is hearing the whole range of frequencies. And, to rule hearing out as the reason they keep saying ‘dope’ instead of ‘soap’!
Related: Childhood Hearing Tests & How Hearing Affects Speech
FAQ: Should I Correct My Child’s Speech Errors?
We don’t recommend correcting your child’s speech “mistakes”. So you can take that pressure off of yourself! The phonological processes or “speech errors” we’ve outlined here are totally common and, as long as they’re happening within the typical age ranges, they’re not something to worry about. Even well-intentioned corrections can sometimes make talking feel like a high-pressure situation for kids who are just learning. And the last thing we want is for them to become discouraged!
Instead of correcting, we recommend:
Modeling the proper pronunciation of speech sounds and words
Giving your child the time they may need to “age out” of these mistakes (as long as they’re continuing to progress and aren’t super hard to understand!)
Reaching out to a professional if ever you get worried
What’s Typical, What’s Not & What To Do
It’s normal for little ones to simplify speech as they’re learning it! If your child is making some of the little “mistakes” we’ve listed here, you don’t need to worry too much. That being said, if people are having a difficult time understanding your child—or if your child seems to be struggling to produce several speech sounds—a speech evaluation would be so helpful!
Learn The Toddler Talking Milestones
If you’re concerned or want to be proactive about your toddler’s communication development, we recommend downloading a copy of our Toddler Talking Milestones! It will give you so much insight into the complex talking skills they’ve already got, and the skills you can expect them to develop next!