Fronting

Click on your child's target pattern below.
(Ask your speech therapist if you're not sure!)

Learn more about patterns of speech:

Patterns of speech (also called "phonological processes") are useful when we're young! To communicate, babies and toddlers simplify speech as they build their verbal skills (like saying "nana" for "banana." As we get older, it is expected that our speech skills progress and these patterns fade. If the patterns persist longer than expected, a speech therapist can help.

When working on patterns of speech (like fronting), it's important to help your child understand the meaning sounds carry (instead of only teaching how to correctly produce a sound*). Why? Because

Phonemes (aka speech sounds) are the smallest meaningful parts of speech.
Ex: If I change one sound, like the /k/ in "cat" to a /b/, I get a word with whole new meaning: "bat."

An approach called Minimal Pairs (where you focus on two words at a time that are different only by one sound) can help build your child's comprehension of the sound meaning.

The links above will provide you with some pairs of words to practice with your child, but you can also use the spirit of this approach in your conversations occasionally: "You said tan. Tan is a color. I think you mean can. Like this: can I have a cookie? Yes, you can!"

*This is different than traditional articulation therapy. For example, when someone has a slight lisp on the "S" sound, them saying "S" with that different tongue placement doesn't usually change the meaning of the word, just how it sounds. In this situation, speech therapy would focus more on helping them build the muscle memory to produce "S" with a specific tongue placement/airflow rather than focusing on helping them understand the meaning of the "S" sound in words.