Speech development

Speech is an articulated, most often sound, manifestation of a person used for communication. There is also written and internal speech. The first six years of life are crucial in the development of speech. The development of each child is individual, the stage of speech development must always be assessed in connection with the overall state of health and psychomotor development. Developmental speech disorders affect the communication process and the child's overall psychomotor and social development. If they are not diagnosed correctly and in time, they can persist or worsen in the next period until adulthood. Treatment tends to be long-term, complex and multidisciplinary. Speech disorders that arise in later life can be the first manifestation of another disease

Conditions for the physiological development of speech

 * appropriately stimulating environment, correct speech patterns;
 * good hearing - even minimal hearing loss of up to 40 dB can affect speech ( secretory otitis or frequent respiratory catarrh);
 * the absence of significant anatomical or functional pathology in the area of ​​the respiratory, phonation and articulation system (vocals, nose and nasopharynx, epipharyngeal closure, dentition, jaws, mobility of the tongue, state of the sublingual frenulum...);
 * absence of neurological or psychiatric disability ( mental retardation, autism spectrum disorder , cerebral palsy , severe visual impairment...).

Stages of child speech development

 * up to 1 year: pre-speech stage, physiological infancy, around the twelfth month the first words with meaning;
 * around 2 years: simple sentences and questions ("what is this?");
 * around the age of 3: the period of prolonged physiological infancy ends, the question "why?" appears, he begins to acquire the grammatical structure of words and sentences;
 * around the age of 4: intellectualization stage – vocabulary grows, auditory perception improves significantly;
 * around the age of 5: more precise pronunciation of most sounds;
 * around 6-7 year: completion of speech development – ​​the child manages to tell a continuous story, uses compound sentences.

Speech development in the 1st year of life

 * up to 2 months – non-verbal phase;
 * from 2 months – vocal play (between mother and child);
 * 3 months - babbling; vowels a, u, e;
 * 7 months – imitating speech sounds;
 * 8 months – syllables da, ba, ka;
 * 10 months - "Dad" or "Mum" unaddressed;
 * 10th to 11th months - short "lines" that do not have a specific meaning, but have a clear form of message, question or order (by rhythm and melody of speech);
 * 12 months - own speech (jargon) that only parents understand - imitates physical sounds, animal voices or human screams; clearly articulates one other word besides "mom" and "dad";
 * understanding of speech (passive vocabulary) develops faster than expressive ability (active vocabulary) - they understand their first words at 9 months.

Speech development in toddlers

 * individual for each child;
 * understanding of speech (passive vocabulary) develops faster than expressive ability (active vocabulary) - at 13 months can understand 20-100 words, but says only a few words;
 * speech development is slowed down by a low-stimulus environment, but also by frequent otitis media with conductive hearing loss;
 * at 12 months the babbling phase peaks, then begins to use specific words to describe objects and activities; points to objects first;
 * at 16 months says 6 words, consonants t, d, v, n, h;
 * uses an average of 20-50 words at 18 months;
 * after 18 months there is rapid development of both passive and active vocabulary; the child begins to understand the symbolic meaning of words;
 * at the end of the 2nd year (at 18-24 months) begins to use verbs and says comprehensible sentences of 2 words, describes his activity ("I go out"); uses prepositions; begins to ask "why?"; begins to realize the factor of time;
 * uses vowels correctly at 2 years; approximately 270 words; uses pronouns;
 * at 24-30 months speaks comprehensible sentences of 3 words;
 * uses approximately 900 words at age 3; understandable sentences of 4 words;
 * up to about 2 years old, the child usually talks about himself in the 3rd person (he calls himself by his name) and only from the beginning of the 3rd year does he start talking in the 1st person ("I").

Speech development in preschoolers

 * speech, vocabulary and sentence structure are improved;
 * at age 4 uses approximately 1500 words and intelligible sentences of 5 words;
 * at age 6 uses about 2,500 words and comprehensible sentences of 6-7 words;
 * first uses coordinating conjunctions and subordinate clauses before the end of the 3rd year;
 * interest in spoken language is growing - three- and four-year-old children can already listen to short stories for a longer period of time;
 * a three-year-old usually knows some nursery rhymes;
 * the development of speech enables the development of knowledge about himself and the surrounding world - a three-year-old child usually knows his full name, gender, correctly identifies the main colors, and around the age of 5 gives a simple definition of known things (mostly purpose, material and shape);
 * can recite (albeit sometimes skipping) a number line up to about ten and matches number names to counted objects; before the age of 5 understands what number means (ie knows that number is determined by the last number that occurred during counting); at the age of 6, he correctly determines the number of subjects (up to approx. 10), if he has illustrative material.

Development of articulation
(according to Jurnečková and Vysoudilova, FN Ostrava – 1970)


 * from 1 to 2.5 years: b, p, m, a, o, u, i, e; j, d, t, n, l – the articulation position is definitively adjusted after the third year of the child's age and will affect the development of the r sound;
 * from 2.5 to 3.5 years: au, ou, v, f, h, ch, k, g;
 * from 3.5 to 4.5 years: bé, pé, me, ve, ð, ť, ň;
 * from 4.5 to 5.5 years: no, w, f;
 * from 5.5 to 6.5 years: c, s, z, r;
 * from 6.5 to 7 years: ø and differentiation of č, š, ž and c, s, z.

Related Articles

 * Disorders of speech development
 * Disorders of speech and other symbolic functions
 * Speech disorders
 * Aphasia/PGS/diagnosis