When children are first learning to talk, they often say words in funny and unexpected ways. As parents, most of us have at least one story about our child mispronouncing a word, and the embarrassing moments that followed! It is completely normal (and adorable) for children to mispronounce words… but when speech sound errors persist beyond a certain age, this can cause issues in reading, writing, and social interaction. For this reason, it’s important to identify articulation (speech) problems early. 

In this post, I am going to break down a few of the most important questions that parents have about speech disorders, and give you some general guidelines to follow. If you are concerned about your child's speech sounds, it is always best to seek an evaluation with a certified speech language pathologist (SLP). 

1. What is the difference between speech and language? 

To begin with, it’s important to identify the difference between speech and language. In this blog post, I am only talk...