Final Consonant Deletion

In this months blog we talk about final consonant deletion.

Final consonant deletion is a phonological process in language where children delete the final consonant off words.

Pretty simple concept right? But this makes them very hard to understand! 

Deleting the final consonants on words looks like this---> Cat becomes Ca

At the word level it may not sound too difficult to understand, but what about when this starts to happen in phrases and full sentences... 

/Mom I want ice cream/ suddenly becomes -----> /mo I wan I crea/ 

Not so easy to understand anymore, huh?

Children usually make this error with words until they are about 3 years of age.

But why? 

Because this is a simpler form of speech. Developmentally this is appropriate until age 3. Children are still learning how to put words together to form phrases and sentences.

But what if this error continues to happen after age 3? 

This is when speech therapy comes into play.

You can also try this technique at home!

 How to target:

Find words that sound alike but adding the final consonant changes the meaning. We call these minimal pairs.

For example:

ba/bat

moo/moon

weigh/weight

no/nose

etc...

These flashcard decks can also be found on Pinterest as a free download.

Present these words to your kiddo and then have them imitate the words back to you.

This is a good place to start. Once your child can repeat the words with the final consonants, see if they can successfully say final consonants at the phrase level, and once they succeed there, listen out for their errors in conversational speech and use any opportunity to model correct language for them.

If you have any questions on how to facilitate this at home or on starting speech therapy to target final consonant deletion. Feel free to leave a comment!

Mahalo,

Speech Solutions Hawaii