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