Syllables per word in typical and delayed speech acquisition

A number of authors have presented data on the word length (measured in syllables) in the spontaneous speech of children across the developmental period. These data suggest a developmental trend of increasing length with age. The current study sought to examine this possibility in more detail. Conversational speech data from 320 children with normal (or normalized) speech confirmed that the number of syllables per word in conversational speech increases significantly from age 3-8 years. Data from the conversational speech of 202 children with speech delay however showed no such trend. Reasons for the differences between the two groups are discussed.