Early speech development, articulation and reading ability up to the age of 9.

Speech development, the occurrence of articulatory errors, speech therapy received and literacy were evaluated in children at preschool and school age. Data were obtained with questionnaires sent to the parents and teachers of 1,708 second-grade children in 119 school classes selected by multistage random sampling among Finnish-speaking schools throughout the country. Completed questionnaires were received from 1,531 parents (89.6%) and 1,601 teachers (93.7%). Early speech development was slower among the boys than among the girls. The proportion of children with articulatory errors decreased from 32.5% at the age of 5 years to 18.4% at 7 years and 7.4% at 9 years, and the boys had more articulation problems than the girls. Errors in two or more sounds at school age were rare, and more than 90% of all errors were in the sounds /r/, and /s/. About one fourth of the girls (26.7%) and one sixth of the boys (18.1%) had gained preschool literacy; 2.9% of the girls and 6.6% of the boys were still not able to read fluently by the middle of the fourth term. The difference between the sexes was seen both in the early development of speech and articulatory problems and in literacy at the age of 9.