A Checklist for Speech Development in Children

Typical development of children's speech follows a predictable sequence, from the first cries, coos, gurgles and babbles of young babies to more recognizable speech sounds that express words and phrases in a child's native language. It is normal for rates of progress to vary among children. However, parents and health professionals can monitor children's progress and remain alert to potential speech problems, such as speech delay, by referring to a speech development checklist.

  1. Cries and Coos

    • Vocal development begins at birth. Mothers often recognize their newborn's unique cry, which signals hunger or distress. By the age of 1 month, babies express a variety of crying sounds. For example, a "hunger" cry may begin as a whine and then develop into a loud and persistent wailing, whereas a "tired" cry sounds more whiny and may vary in its volume and pitch. By the age of 3 months, babies make cooing and gurgling sounds when they feel happy and settled. Cooing consists of repetitive, sustained vowel sounds, such as a sustained "ooh" sound, and gurgling is vocalized at the back of the mouth and throat. These early sounds enable babies to practice vocals skills in preparation for later speech development.

    Babbling

    • By the age of about 6 months, a baby's vocal cords have matured enough for him to direct air flow across them and vocalize babbling sounds. Babbling consists of stringing together hard consonant sounds with a vowel to produce repetitive syllables, such as "ba ba ba" or "da da da." At this stage, babies also experiment with volume, pitch and intonation; for example, they may use a rising inflection at the end of a string of babbling, as if posing a question. At this point, babies become "more attuned to the social nature of language," says Dr. Richard Woolfson, author of "Small Talk." Babies begin to "converse" with you by producing a string of babbles, pausing to wait for your reply, then resuming their babbling sounds..

    First Words

    • By the age of 12 months, syllable combinations that babies use in babbling have become more complex and involve at least three different consonant-vowel blends, says Woolfson. By the age of 15 months, children have usually spoken their first word. Woolfson explains that a child's first word is defined as an utterance that consistently refers to something specific, such as a particular person or object, and one that consists of "a distinctive form and shape that you recognize each time you hear it." For example, if a child says "tus" each time she picks up her sippy cup, or when she points to a juice carton, her utterance has become consistent and distinctive.

    Speech Sounds Development

    • Children's mastery of speech sounds typically follows an order that is related to the level of pronunciation difficulty. According to the KidsHealth.org, children usually pronounce many vowel sounds correctly by the age of 30 months and achieve complete mastery of vowel sounds by the age of 4. By 3 years, children can pronounce the consonants P, M, H, N and W correctly and have mastered B, K, G, D, F and Y by the age of 4. Complete mastery of some consonant blends and of the sounds T, L and R is usually achieved by the age of 6. But children may not fully master certain complex speech sounds and blends until the age of 8.

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