What is a phonological process?   Speech sounds are complex to say and sometimes little ones can have difficulty producing them accurately until they are more developed. They tend to replace these “tricky” sounds with ones that are easier for them to say.  We call these substitutions phonological processes. Normally children will grow out of these by a certain age.  Below is a guide for you on the most common phonological processes:

Substitution/process	Description	Example	Age when typical child stops process
Reduplication	When a complete (or incomplete) syllable is repeated	e.g. baba for bottle	Between 2 – 3 yrs
Affrication	When a non-affricate sound is replaced with an affricate(ch or j)	Joor for door	3 yrs
Final consonant deletion	When the last consonant in the word is left off	Child says “roe” instead of “road”	3 yrs
Fronting	When a sound normally produced at the back of the mouth is produced further forward in the mouth	Tup instead of cup	3 ½ yrs
Backing	When a sound normally produced at the front of the mouth is produced further back	Child says “gog” instead of “dog”	This is very unusual and when we observe this process it is often an indicator of a severe phonological difficulty
Stopping	When a fricative sound like f or s, or an affricate sound like ch or j is replaced with a plosive sound such as p or b	Stopping /f/ fish → tish   Stopping /s/        soap → dope Stopping /v/ very→ berry   Stopping /z/ zoo → doo Stopping ‘sh’        shop = dop   Stopping ‘j’ jump → dump Stopping ‘ch’  chair → tare Stopping voiceless ‘th’ thing → ting Stopping voiced ‘th’ them → dem	3 yrs   3 yrs   3 yrs 6 months   3 yrs 6 months 4 yrs 6 months     4 yrs 6 months   4 yrs 6 months   5 yrs   5 yrs
Weak syllable deletion	When the weak syllable in a word is deleted	Banana becomes nana	4 yrs
Initial consonant deletion	When the initial sound is left off of the word	“bunny” → “unny”	This is very unusual and when we observe this process it is often an indicator of a severe phonological delay
Cluster reduction	when a consonant in a cluster of sounds is left out	“plane” → “pane”	4 yrs (without s) 5 yrs (in s clusters)
Gliding	When an r sound becomes a w or y sound and an l sound becomes a w or y sound	“robot” → “wobot” “yellow” →”lellow”	6 yrs