Development of Fluency in Children

Abstract

The scope of this perspective article is to review the available literature on the development of fluency. The available evidence suggests that sophisticated types of disfluencies take over repetitions, prolongations, and pauses in children in the ages of 2 years to 7 years. Further, the studies report that children initially use stress on each syllable and later learn the stress pattern of their respective native languages. In addition, the development of speech rhythm of a particular language, as per most of the studies commences in infancy and adult-like rhythm develops by 12 years of age. A review of studies on speech rhythm indicates that the definition of speech rhythm is yet to be established and the results of studies are contradicting.