How Much of Your 4/5 Year Old's Speech Can You Understand?

My 4 year old- 100%, he speaks very clearly. My 5 year old- 100% but at 4 maybe 90% for other people

my boys were speaking clearly by this age. but two of my brothers were stutterers and much more difficult to understand.
khairete
S.

I could understand all of my kids by 4. Sometimes I had to tell them to slow down (still do), because they get so excited...but I understand them.

The real question is what percentage of your 4/5 year old's speech can OTHER people understand? :)

Parents can usually understand everything their kids say because they live with their little speech issues. It's outsiders who don't understand.

For my boys, at that age, 100% of their speech was clear.

By age 4, my daughter could clearly say anything she wanted to say, including the species of her favorite dinosaurs.

My dd has been in speech therapy for the last year and a half, and will be turning 4 next week. I can understand about 80-90% of her speech. Strangers can usually understand around 75%. I Saw a drastic change in the speed of her improvement after she started speech therapy, and even more improvement after I decided to have her read along with me. (Instead of just reading to her like I had been doing).

On the phone, I can barely understand my 8 year old brother, who has always had excellent enunciation.

I can't understand 100% of anyone, regardless of age. Even my son with speech delays I could understand 80% of what he said by he was in his fours. The other three I could understand as well as an adult.

I (and others) understood my older son 100% by the age of four/five. He is/was very articulate. My younger son was a late talker and started speech therapy when he was three. By the time he was four he could be understood 90%, and when he started kindergarten at five he was 100% and no longer needed speech therapy.

I can understand 100% of my 4 year old in person. Parents are supposed to understand more than others. We may compensate and get used to something or assume what the child is going to say. I believe the teachers also understand my daughter 100% or most all of what she says. sometimes she gets shy and whispers. Over the phone, is a different story, even for me (the parent). I'm not actually sure the %, but i have to repeat what she says to my husband if we are on speaker.

I'm going to go against the grain here. I know many kids who have been in speech therapy for years (age 8 and started at 3 years). I still can't understand them. I will need to re-check with my friends 10 year old (i think his speech is more clear). I question if some quirks just get worked out naturally. So many specialist promote early intervention (it make sense to me, yet I am not totally sold on the therapy vs. time at work). I would really like to know the percent of kids who just needed time vs. the kids still in therapy and can't be understood.

I can understand almost all of it if I'm actually paying attention and not trying to do something else. But she is going to need speech therapy at school this year because she has a hard time with some sounds. Th sh r those sort of things. She leaves those sounds out even though I correct her so she is on a different scale with that she was a super late talker didn't start until 2 2m5

When my youngest was 4/5 (in pre-K) we had some pretty comical miscommunications. For the most part I could figure out what he was saying but I'd say that 20% of the time it took some effort. The best was one day when he was trying to tell me what the "letter of the day" was. He kept saying "awww" so I thought he meant "O." We went back in forth several times with me telling him that the letter name is "oh" even though it can make an "aw" sound and finally he said "no mama like a pirate says...Awwwww!" Oh, you mean "R"? "Yes mama that's what I said like a million times!"

My son was evaluated many times and never qualified for speech services - we were repeatedly told that his issues were normal for his age and weren't interfering with his education. His speech is still "slushy" at age 8 but most of his sound switches have been corrected. I still have a hard time understanding him if he talks really quickly but it's night and day compared to pre-K through the middle of first grade.

At that age people could understand about 99% of what my daughter was saying in person.
Over the phone can be more difficult. she was always a bit shy about speaking on the phone, so combine that with your typical cell phone reception issues... when we talk to the grandparents we prefer Skype.

By that age, 100%.
The state provides free screening, and services if needed, if you are concerned.
If your child goes to preschool, ask about screening, or ask your pediatrician.
Early intervention REALLY makes a world of difference!

My daughter turned four this month and I can understand 100% of what she says when she speaks in a normal voice. If she is crying or whining then it becomes harder. It is the same over the phone if she is holding it properly. She uses tenses incorrectly sometimes but that doesn't concern me too much. Last night she said "I want you to read (pronounced red) it" when I told her to pick a bedtime book. We just say it back to hercorrectly so she'll pick up on it.

By that age, the expectation (of pediatricians and the like) is that children's speech be 100% comprehensible, or close to it.

Children may mispronounce certain sounds (say, they'll make a w sound in place of an r), and they may mispronounce certain words or use them out of context, but not to the point of interfering with comprehension.

Over the phone is somewhat different. Kids that age, especially 4s, may not understand that the person on the other line can't see what they're pointing to. And socially/emotionally, they may or may not be able to connect with the person on the other line.

There are a lot of reasons why a child's speech may not be clear at this age, and many (perhaps most) are very, very treatable. But this is likely worth a check-in with a pediatrician.

At four and five years old, I could understand my daughter completely. My son will be four in October and I can understand him 99 percent of the time I would say. Others can understand him 90 percent of the time. Based on my experience with children, I work with little ones in a parents day out program who are 2 and 3, when they do talk I would say as a whole, I can understand all eleven of them 80 percent of the time. I occasionally sub in a pre-k class, so four and five year olds are in there.. and I only have particular difficulty understanding 2 of the boys. I think as a general rule this is common! Many of the little girls speak so clearly and the boys are just playing catch up.
Now to address the phone question, I definitely think odds of understanding them over the phone go down drastically since you have no other clues other than their little words to go by.

Yep at that age I and everyone else could understand what my kids were saying in person or on the phone.

Our son was speaking pretty clearly at that age.
He asked a lot about meanings.
Sometimes he'd hear a word at school but didn't know if it was a bad word - so he'd ask "Can I say it so you can tell me if it's bad?".
We listen to a lot of pirate music/sea chanties so for awhile I lived in fear of him repeating 'send the bastard off to sea' at school, but we never had a problem with it.

My son is 4.5 and was in speech from 3 years old until about a month ago. When he started I could understand about 50% of what he says. Now it's about 99%. On phone and in person is the same.

I think it does matter phone vs in person, and a child that age should be mostly understandable, like in the 90+% range. If you have questions about your child's speech, either seek your local early intervention program (for a preschooler) or talk to your child's school. If there is no speech pathologist at the school, there should be one assigned to the district. The evaluations will also help you understand the range of normal for children and where your child falls in that range. There are some sounds they do not worry about til a child is 7 or 8 yrs old.

I understand 100%, others probably 90%, and it is a bit more difficult on the phone

When my daughter was 5, I could understand at best 25% of her speech, and most times it was less than that. That was a clear indicator to me that something was wrong, as I could understand my son fully at 3 years, and I could understand all of the other children in my daughter's kindergarten class without difficulty. Although the kindergarten teacher couldn't officially recommend therapy because my daughter technically passed the speech screen given to kindergartners (which was a joke), she agreed to refer us to the school speech therapist, anyway. The therapist diagnosed her with a 95% articulation deficiency, and she spent several years in speech therapy. By the end of the first year, I could understand almost 100% of what she said.

If you think your child is having speech difficulties, trust your instincts and ask for an assessment. The earlier intervention is received, the better.

With my daughter, it was about 70%. now she is 6, and it's 100% if she slows down.

I did a search a long time ago and found that 70% of 4-5 year olds have difficulty pronouncing a good 60% of sounds. Research showed that by 7 kids have mastered what they need to without therapy.

My son had a lot of ear infections growing up. Because of that, his speech was delayed somewhat. I guess I hadn't really noticed because he was around me so much-it was just easy to understand. I didn't even notice the issues he had until he started school. By first grade he had to have a speech therapist work with him. He still struggles with annunciation to this day, however he does fairly well.

It's been a while since my kids were that age.. they are almost 13 and 16 now.
But, I distinctly remember my father having some trouble understanding my son part of the time when he was just turned 3. I had no trouble, but my father did, b/c his hearing wasn't perfect AND he wasn't accustomed to hearing it all day every day. :)

But, by age 4 or 5? Even my Dad had no issues understanding either of my children. Some children do mispronounce things up into those ages, and some children have difficulties with certain letter combinations and such. But I think that for "most" kids, the majority of the mispronunciations by those ages (barring a speech/language issue that warrants addressing by a professional) are simply because the parents have not made the effort to teach them the proper pronunciations.. many times I have seen parents think that such errors are cute, and they act as if they like/enjoy them...

I never used baby talk with my kids... I spoke to them like the intelligent little beings that they are, and they learned to pronounce most things correctly from the start.

The most noticeable were things like "Chikafay" for ChiKFilA, when my son was about 3. And it didn't last very long before he learned the correct name. My daughter, also around 3, would say "cold slop" instead of "cole slaw".... but I think that is because she didn't like it (she's on the picky side, lol).

I think that if a child is having difficulty with the same letter combinations repeatedly, or the same words (not new words, but ones they use regularly) even after being corrected... at age 5, they should be provided with some speech therapy to help them.

I could understand 100% of my son's speech at age 4. Most people could also understand everything he said. My daughter is 3.5 and I can understand 95% of what she says. Other people, if she speaks audibly (sometimes she is so shy she's too quiet for people to hear) can understand probably 85-90% of what she says.

Over the phone is a totally different story. Kids don't understand how to hold the phone right, so they don't talk into the right part or they cover the speaker with their hand. You can't see them, so you have no clues to help you figure things out if you aren't sure what they are saying. It's definitely harder to understand them over the phone.

If your child is 4 or 5 and you are not understanding most of his/her speech, you should definitely go for an evaluation. If you can understand at least 90% and others can understand probably 75-80%, I wouldn't worry. They don't have to be able to pronounce everything correctly - might still be waiting for R or TH sounds (or others) to come in, but you should still know what they are saying. If a 5 year old can't be understood at least 95% of the time by other people, I would seek treatment.

I had no problem understanding my own child. Even my elderly Grandmother always remarked on how well she talked and how she could understand her better than she could sometimes understand my 10 year old cousin.

My nephews I can't always understand, but they talk so fast, and everyone baby talked them. I didn't allow baby talk around my daughter, and I think it made a difference.

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I had no problem understanding my own child. Even my elderly Grandmother always remarked on how well she talked and how she could understand her better than she could sometimes understand my 10 year old cousin.

My nephews I can't always understand, but they talk so fast, and everyone baby talked them. I didn't allow baby talk around my daughter, and I think it made a difference.

Yes. Most 4 year old kids have an extensive vocabulary. Most do not use baby talk and have a clear voice to say most of what they're trying to convey to adults.

If you're having trouble understanding a child over the phone consider the phone. I can't understand my adult daughter on her phone to my cell but I can understand her on the land line.

If it's the child and it's the same in person and also on the phone then perhaps the child will need speech assistance once they enter public school.