Phonological processes are typically developing speech sound errors which occur in children. These processes usually remediate themselves by age 5.5.
The most common processes include:
Final consonant deletion- the deletion of a final consonant in a word (e.g. “bed” becomes “be”)
Fronting- is the substitution of sounds in the front of the mouth for back sounds (e.g. “cup” becomes “tup”)
Stopping- is the substitution of a sound which momentarily stops the airflow, for those which are “*noisy” sounds (e.g. “sail” becomes “tail.”)
Cluster reduction- is the deletion of one or more consonants from a 2 or 3 word cluster (e.g. “spot” becomes “pot”)
Stridency Deletion- is the deletion or substitution of a “*noisy” sound (e.g. “fin” becomes “in”)
Gliding- is when an /r/ becomes a /w/ or /l/ becomes a /w/ or /j/ (e.g. “rail” becomes “whale”)
*noisy sounds include: /f/ /v/ /sh/ /ch/ /j/ /s,z/
When these processes occur more than 40% of the time in a child’s speech, it may negatively impact his/her intelligibility.
For more information on phonological processes and how to remediate them, please visit :
http://community.advanceweb.com/blogs/sp_13/archive/2014/05/01/elimination-of-phonological-processes-in-early-intervention.aspx