Language development

[RueDeWakening]

Hi,

Can anyone point me towards an outline of when children are expected to pick up and start using particular sounds in their speech?

For background, DS will be 3 next month, and his speech is fairly clear in that I understand him most of the time, however he often misses the first sound in a word, or substitutes sounds eg b instead of d and so on. He normally has the right general word sound, but sometimes has to repeat himself several times while DH and I run through the possibilities to work out what he actually said.

He was born 2 months prematurely, although discharged by neonatal with no obvious concerns just after his 2nd birthday. He has an older sister who had uncommonly clear speech from an early age, so I am very wary of comparing the two of them!

Thanks.

when I did my children's studies the guide line was that clear speech is desirable by the age of 6 or 7, after that unclear talk may be classified as speech impediment.

this was almost 20 years ago and not in England and things change all the time - I'm not sure about current views, but it's a good guideline.

hard to not compare with siblings, but best to avoid that.
try & compare him with himself - can you take a video of him talking now and say in a month again, saying roughly the same set of words/phrases? you can then see & hear the difference/progress.

has he had a hearing test? he could have glue ear or other things and he just can't hear you properly.

I wouldn't worry too much, but if you can get GP or HV to refer you to a speech therapist for an objective assignment,
he's probably ok or may have a slight speech impediment and you'll be advised accordingly.

here is a fantastic website that has lots of info on speech development
www.talkingpoint.org.uk/en/Parent.aspx

Thanks - he hasn't had his hearing checked since he left NICU and I was wondering about doing that so will try and follow up soon. Language delay/difficulties was the one big thing that NICU warned us was a likely outcome for him, so I'm aware that I'm probably more sensitive to his speech than perhaps I ought to be.

Insancerre - that website looks brilliant, thank you, I'll spend some time going through it later this evening.

He starts preschool in a month, and I know they are ECAT accredited, so hopefully they'll be able to help with anything necessary too.

Thanks again, very useful!