When should my child be able to say r words?
Has your toddler ever said “I wuv you” or “Mommy, it’s waining outside”?
It’s not uncommon for a small child to substitute one speech sound that she can say for another that she can’t yet say, like substituting a w sound for either an r or l sound. Sometimes children will even leave out certain sounds or distort sounds that are hard to pronounce. For example, the letter s is tricky – even Sid the Sloth from the movie Ice Age found it a challenge! Sid demonstrated what speech-language pathologists call a lateral lisp. When a lateral lisp occurs breath escapes over the sides of the tongue rather than traveling straight forward, creating a slushy sound.
Later developing speech sounds are highly variable in terms of age of acquisition. That means that being able to produce sounds like r as in the word rain, zh as in garage, and th as in in this or thing take more time to achieve, let alone master consistently.
In 2020 researchers McLeod & Crowe studied how and when kids acquire the ability to pronounce different consonant sounds and devised norms for typically developing children. The list below shows the different consonant sounds and the age that 90% of children develop the ability to pronounce these speech sounds:
3 YEARS - p, b, m, n, h, w, d
4 YEARS - t, k, g, f, ng, y (as in yoyo)
5 YEARS - l, j, s, sh, ch, z, v
6 YEARS - r, voiced th (as in the), zh (as in garage)
7 YEARS - unvoiced th (as in think)
If you’ve noticed that your school-aged child is having a difficult time correctly producing one or two of these speech sounds by the ages listed above, a licensed speech-language pathologist (a.k.a. SLP) can be an excellent resource for you. In the case that your child is diagnosed with a speech sound disorder, an SLP can incorporate articulation therapy into entertaining and engaging games and activities that will help your child learn how to confidently pronounced sounds that are misarticulated. With skilled speech therapy and practice she’ll soon be up and running!
Children learn language little by little. As they acquire world knowledge, by going to the neighborhood playground or the grocery store with you, they also acquire word knowledge.
While no two children are the same there is a general timeline in which most kids are able to say “buh” or “mama”. By 18 months a typically developing toddler will use a combination of sounds and syllables and be able to say about 10 words. By 24 months she’ll be able to name at least 50 different things like “sock” or “doggy”, utter two-word phrases such as “all gone”, and follow two-step directions. At three years old, she’ll be able to retell a story from the princess movie that you watched together on Friday night.
Fast forward to the year between preschool and kindergarten and your four-year-old’s use language will have evolved immensely! By this time you would expect to hear your child use grammatically correct sentences. While she might have some difficulty pronouncing later developing consonant sounds like /l/ and /r/, you’ll understand what she’s trying to say. Your preschooler will be able to identify words that rhyme and even be able to understand the rules of a game like Candy Land. After the age of four, you will be amazed by the way your child’s ability to express herself grows in complexity as she grows.
If you do have concerns about whether or not your child is reaching his speech and language milestones later than his same-aged peers, a speech-language pathologist (a.k.a. SLP) can be a wonderful resource. An SLP is qualified to conduct a comprehensive speech-language evaluation to identify your child’s areas of strength and weakness and provide you with information regarding age-related norms for speech and language development. This data empowers you to then make an informed decision about whether or not your child would benefit from speech therapy.
There’s so much to think about when you’re a parent and you can’t know it all. Regarding language and speech, an SLP can provide you with evidence-based answers so that you don’t have to wonder whether or not your child needs speech therapy.
