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Speech Development Between 30 and 119 Months in Typical Children I: Intelligibility Growth Curves for Single-Word and Multiword Productions

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Speech Development Between 30 and 119 Months in Typical Children I: Intelligibility Growth Curves for Single-Word and Multiword Productions

Katherine C. Hustad, Tristan Mahr, Phoebe Natzke, Paul J. Rathouz · 2021 · Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Children
538 children
Where
The United States (run at the University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Ages
2½ to almost 10 years
How
Children said words and sentences, and adults who didn't know them wrote down what they heard
What it found
For a typical child, strangers understood half of the words in their sentences by about 34 months and three-quarters by about 46 months. Nearly all children (all but the slowest 5 in 100) reached these levels about a year later.
Limits
Children were tested repeating set words and sentences, which can be harder to understand than everyday talk. It was done in one country.

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