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Phonological Processes: At What Age Should They Be Suppressed?
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Phonological Processes
Phonological processes are sound errors that typically developing children use to simplify speech as they are developing speech and language skills. A phonological disorder occurs when a child has not outgrown, or suppressed the phonological process past the expected age.
| Phonological Process | Description | Age suppressed |
| Unstressed Syllable Deletion | Children delete the unstressed syllable. (e.g. telephone → telephone) | 3 years of age |
| Final Consonant Deletion | Children delete the last consonant of a word. (e.g. hat → ha) | 3 years of age |
| Consonant Assimilation | One consonant influences another (e.g. bed → beb) | 3 years of age |
| Reduplication | The child repeats the first syllable two times. (e.g. bottle → baba) | 3 years of age |
| Velar Fronting | Back phonemes /k/ and /g/ are replaced by front phonemes /t/ and /d/. (e.g. cookie → tootie) | ~ 3 years of age |
| Affrication | A non-affricate sound is replaced by an affricate (“ch” or “j”). (e.g. door → joor) | 3 years of age |
| Stopping | A fricative sound like /f/ or /s/ or affricate sound like “ch” or “j” is substituted with a stop consonant like /p/ or /b/. (e.g. jump → dump) | Between 3 and 5 years of age |
| Deaffrication | An affricate “ch” or “j” is replaced with a fricative or stop like /sh/ or /d/. (e.g. chips → ships) | 4 years of age |
| Cluster Reduction | A consonant cluster is reduced to a single consonant (e.g. blue → bu) | Between 4 and 5 years of age |
| Gliding | Phonemes /r/ and /l/ are replaced by /w/ (e.g. love → wove; road → woad) | 6 years of age |
| Epenthesis | A vowel sound is added between two constants. (e.g. blue → bu-lue) | 8 years of age |
It is important for parents, caregivers and teachers to be knowledgeable of phonological processes. If any process is evident in the child’s speech past the age of seven years old, it is imperative that they are evaluated by a speech-language pathologist. Phonological processes can lead to significantly reduced speech intelligibility if they are left untreated.
Sources: Super Duper Publications; Mommy Speech Therapy.
-Kristen Meaney, MA, CF-SLP
