Speech Sound Development 

By the time children are of school age (5+) they should be able to speak clearly enough so that other people understand them with ease. Generally speaking the only sounds that might still not be developed at school age are /th/ and /r/.

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Poor speech sound development can  impact how well children can communicate and socialise with their peers and make friends. It can also lead to confusion with letter sounds and literacy development.

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Language Development

Between 5 and 6 years old

• Typically have an expressive vocabulary of 3000 to 5000 words

• Sentences can be 8+words in length

•  The stories/ narratives they tell are becoming more detailed. They contain a begining, focus point and end without much extra detail. 

• We start to expect more  basic grammar rules (e.g. regular plurals, regular past tense etc.)

• Use descriptive words to describe nouns and verbs.

• Can understand and follow 3 part instructions.

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Between 7 and 9 years old 

• Stories/ narratives grow to include goals, timelines  and reactions of characters.

• Language is used to maintain social relationships.

• School and reading experiences introduce, new words not encountered in conversation.

• Children start to learn words that have the same word meanings or are in the same word group,   for example synonyms (e.g. tired, exhausted),  autonyms (e.g. heavy , light), multiple meanings (e.g. a dogs bark and bark on a tree)

• Knowledge and use of more advanaced grammatical rules in conversation and school work is expected of them.

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Between 9 and 12 years old

• Stories/ narratives become even  more complex.

• Solid understanding and use of all  grammatical rules.

• More complex, vocabulary relating to school topics increases.

• Can easily understand multipart instructions.

• Common idioms are understood.

• New information is learned easily through reading.

• Sentence structure used in written language becomes more complex.

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If you have concerns over your school aged childs language development, you can  contact  Total Communication to answer any questions you may have in more detail.