ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the problems with ‘f’, ‘v’, ‘th’, ‘s’, ‘z’, ‘sh’ (fricatives) and ‘ch’, ‘j’ (affricates) in words. Fricatives are sounds made by the air being forced through a narrow gap and are commonly replaced by stops where air is built up and suddenly released explosively. Children commonly use the pattern of context sensitive voicing in combination with stopping. It they do this the pronunciations of the target words might sound more like those listed in the chapter. The fricatives and affricates are a large group of sounds in English, and they develop between the ages of two-and-a-half and seven years. The sounds ‘f’ and ‘s’ are usually the first to develop, and are present in the speech of children aged two-and-a-half to three years. The ‘sh’ sound emerges more slowly and will often sound more like ‘s’ until children are four or five years old.
