CHAPTER IX

DEFECTIVE SPEECH IN CHILDREN

(1) THE PRE-SPEAKING PERIOD


From the standpoint of speech development, the life of any person
between the time of birth and the age of twenty-one years, may be
divided into four periods as follows:

From Birth to Age 2--PRE-SPEAKING PERIOD.
Age 2 to Age 6--FORMATIVE-SETTING PERIOD
Age 6 to Age 11--SPEECH-SETTING PERIOD
Age 11 to Age 20--ADOLESCENT PERIOD

This chapter will deal only with the first period of the child's
speech-development, beginning with birth and taking the child up
to his second year. The speech disorders of the later periods will
be taken up in the three following chapters.

THE PRE-SPEAKING PERIOD: This is the period between the time of
birth and the age of 2, and takes the child up to the time of the
first spoken word. This does not mean, of course, that no child
speaks before the age of 2, for many children have made their
first trials at speaking at as early an age as 15 months, and many
begin to talk by the time they are a year and a half old. At the
age of two, however, not only the precocious child but the child
of slower-than-average development should be able to talk in at
least brief, disjointed monosyllables.