Let’s continue our chat about developmental phonological errors in toddlers – Stopping & Fronting! In this blog post, we are only going to be discussing these two phonological errors because they come with a little more terminology.
What’s Stopping?
Stopping occurs when a fricative or affricate sound is replaced with a stop sound.
Stop sounds are produced when a small amount of air is forced quickly through part of the oral cavity. P, B, T, D are stop sounds (these are also voice and voiceless consonants).
Fricatives are produced when oral structures are manipulated in a way that air is forced through a confined area and creates a friction noise. Fricative sounds are S, Z, and SH (voice and voiceless consonants). Affricate sounds are a combination of a stop sound and a fricative sound: CH: t/sh, J: d/sh, ZH: d/z.
What’s Fronting?
Fronting occurs when a velar sound is replaced with an alveolar sound. What is a velar sound? Velar sounds are produced in the back of the mouth; K, G, NG. What is an alveolar sound? Alveolar sounds are produced using the front of the mouth; T, D, N
Increasing Intelligibility
These two developmental phonological errors in toddlers should be resolved by the time a toddler turns 3.5 years old! Does this mean that the toddler will never produce these errors again? Nope!
Let’s talk about the word “eliminated”. In the context of developing speech, eliminated implies that the majority of the time, a toddler does not use the phonological process when they speak. Will they continue to make errors? Likely; they just won’t be as obvious and will more than likely be due to later developing consonant sounds.
In other words, as they develop, toddler speech should become more intelligible.
Want to find out more about speech development in early childhood? Start here- the first 5 phonological processes. If you already know about those, check out the final two developmental phonological processes here!
Don’t forget! My phonology bundle was created just for our early communicators. Start from the most simplistic form of words (CV, VC) and work all the way to words with multiple syllables (up to 5 syllable words!). All in one resource! Recently updated, this bundle now offers interactive books, coloring pages, dauber dot pages for multiple productions, word-building activities, visuals, and so much more!
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