My Child Is Hard to Understand

Almost every young child is hard to understand some of the time. Words come out with sounds missing, swapped or softened, and the people who hear them all day learn to fill in the gaps.

What matters is not whether your child is ever unclear. It is how much of what they say other people can follow, at what age, and whether it is slowly getting easier.

This guide explains what is usually expected at each age, what helps at home, and when to ask a speech and language therapist to listen properly.

A quick note on what SpeechBarn does. SpeechBarn is built for early words and language: helping a child who says very little start using words like more, open and help. It does not teach speech sounds, and it is not the right tool for unclear speech. If clarity is your main worry, the useful next step is a therapist, not an app. More on that below.

How much should other people understand?

There are two honest answers to this, and they do not quite agree.

The first is the rule of thumb most services still quote, which came from asking parents how intelligible their child was (Coplan and Gleason, 1988). It is easy to remember and it is what a health visitor is likely to have in mind:

The second comes from more recent work in which researchers recorded hundreds of children and had unfamiliar listeners write down what they actually heard. Measured that way, children reach those same thresholds around a year later than the old rule suggests. In connected speech, the typical child is about half understood at around two and a half to three, about three quarters understood at close to four, and 90% understood at around five, with children at the slower end of typical arriving later still (Hustad et al., 2021).

So a three-year-old that strangers only half follow is not automatically a child with a disorder. It is a child worth someone listening to properly.

Therapists often ask the question a more useful way: who understands your child? You, the other parent, siblings, grandparents, friends, nursery staff, strangers. That is exactly what the Intelligibility in Context Scale asks parents to rate, and the average for four- and five-year-olds is around 4.4 out of 5 (McLeod, Harrison and McCormack, 2012). A child whom only the immediate family can follow is the pattern worth raising, whatever the percentages say.

Patterns that are usually just development

Children do not learn every sound at once. While they are working it out, they simplify words in fairly predictable ways:

• swapping a back sound for a front one: “tat” for cat, “doe” for go
• dropping the end of a word: “ca” for cat
• squashing a cluster: “poon” for spoon, “boo” for blue
• “w” for “r”: “wabbit” for rabbit
• a lisped “s” in the preschool years
• losing a syllable in a long word: “nana” for banana

Most of these fade on their own, and the charts therapists use put rough ages on them: dropping the ends of words usually stops by about three, swapping k and g for t and d by about three and a half, and squashing clusters by about four, or five for the s clusters.

The sounds themselves arrive in a fairly consistent order too. In the largest review of English-speaking children in the US, most had p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, ng, f, h, w and y by around four; v, s, z, sh, ch, j and l by around five; and th, r and the middle sound in "measure" anywhere up to six or seven (Crowe and McLeod, 2020, using a 90% criterion).

So an r that still sounds like w at four is ordinary. What is worth more attention is not one sound in one word, but a child whose speech is hard to follow across the board, or who is not becoming any clearer over months.

What actually helps at home

The most useful thing you can do is keep talking easy and worth doing. That means responding to the message rather than the pronunciation.

Say the word back, correctly, without making it a correction

Child: “Tat!”
You: “Cat! Yes, a big cat.”

Your child hears the adult version straight after their own, attached to something they meant. No “try again”, no “say it properly”, no repeating it three times.

Let them finish

Finishing a child's sentences for them or guessing quickly can teach them that talking is not worth the effort. Give them time, and let them have the turn.

Ask about the meaning, not the sound

If you genuinely cannot work out what your child said, ask about the thing rather than the word: “Show me?” or “Is it in the kitchen?” Repeating “what?” several times is frustrating for both of you.

Admit it kindly when you are stuck

“I didn't get that one, but I want to know. Show me.” That is honest, and it keeps them talking.

Get hearing checked

Hearing and speech clarity are closely linked, and glue ear is common and easy to miss. If your child has had frequent ear infections, does not always respond to sounds, or turns things up loud, ask your GP or health visitor about a hearing check.

What does not help

• Drilling sounds at home without a therapist's plan. The right target depends on which sounds your child uses and how they are using them, and practising the wrong thing is at best wasted effort.
• Asking a child to repeat a word until it comes out right.
• Correcting every unclear word during a conversation.
• Making them say a word clearly before they get something they need.
• Waiting a long time to see if it settles, when it is already affecting how your child gets on with other people.

When to speak to a speech and language therapist

You do not need to wait for a particular age or a particular number of unclear words. Ask for advice if:

• people outside your family often cannot understand your child at three
• you frequently cannot understand your own child
• your child is frustrated, gives up, or has stopped trying to tell you things
• their speech has not become clearer over several months
• they leave off the beginnings or ends of most words
• they are also using fewer words than expected, or struggling to understand you
• they have had a lot of ear infections, or you have any concern about their hearing
• your child has stopped using speech or skills they previously had
• other people, including nursery staff, have mentioned it
• you are worried, even if you cannot say exactly why

UK services ask about some specific things when unclear speech is the main concern. Any of these is worth a referral on its own:

• not using m, n, p, b, t and d by three
• saying the same word a different way each time
• using only one or two consonant sounds, or mostly vowels
• vowels that sound off, as well as consonants

A therapist can work out whether the pattern is ordinary development, a delay, or something that needs specific therapy, and which sounds to target in which order. That assessment is individual, which is exactly why it cannot come from a chart or an app.

The appointment guide can help you gather useful examples beforehand. Recording a short video of your child talking at their most chatty is often more useful than any list of words.

Can SpeechBarn help with unclear speech?

No, and we would rather say so plainly.

SpeechBarn teaches a small set of useful early words through play, for children who are not yet using many words at all. It is a vocabulary and early language tool.

Speech sound difficulties are a different thing. Which sound to work on, in which position, in which order, and with which technique are decisions that depend on your individual child, and getting them wrong can mean months of practice with nothing to show for it. That work belongs with a qualified speech and language therapist who has listened to your child.

If your child is both saying very little and hard to understand, the language side is something you can start supporting today while you wait for that appointment. How to help a toddler talk covers what to do, and the late talker screener can help you describe what you are seeing.

While you are waiting for an appointment

Waiting lists are long in a lot of places, and the temptation is to find something, anything, to practise. A better use of the wait:

1. Keep a short list of words your child says and what they mean, including the unclear ones. A therapist will find this genuinely useful.
2. Record a two-minute video of ordinary play or a mealtime.
3. Ask about a hearing check so it is already done.
4. Note who understands your child: you, the other parent, grandparents, nursery, strangers.
5. Keep responding to what your child means, so they keep wanting to talk.

The waitlist guide has more on making the wait count.

Research behind this guide

The figures in this guide come from the speech development literature rather than from SpeechBarn:

• Coplan and Gleason (1988), Pediatrics, for the familiar rule of thumb (half understood at two, three quarters at three, nearly all at four), which was based on parent report.
• Hustad, Mahr, Natzke and Rathouz (2021), Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, for the transcription-based growth curves from 538 typically developing children aged 30 to 119 months, which place those same thresholds around a year later.
• Crowe and McLeod (2020), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, for English consonant acquisition ages in the United States at a 90% criterion, and McLeod and Crowe (2018) for the cross-linguistic review behind it.
• McLeod, Harrison and McCormack (2012) for the Intelligibility in Context Scale, and the preschool normative data reported for it.
• NHS children's speech and language therapy referral guidance for the specific things UK services ask about when unclear speech is the main concern.

Ages given for the simplifying patterns are the ones on the phonological process charts in routine clinical use. They vary a little between sources, and none of them is a deadline.

About this guide

This guide provides general information for parents and carers. It is not an assessment, and it does not diagnose a speech sound difficulty or replace individual advice from a Speech and Language Therapist. Children vary widely, and no single figure decides whether a child needs support.

Clinically written and reviewed by a qualified Speech and Language Therapist.