Final consonant deletion is a phonological process (pattern of speech errors) where a child drops off the ending consonants of all words.

Final Consonant Deletion Examples:

Final consonant deletion is a very normal speech pattern for young children.  By dropping off the last sounds of words, young children are able to let us know what they need without over-taxing their speech systems.  However, after a certain age, we expect children to stop using this process/pattern and start including all of their sounds.

The age of elimination for final consonant deletion is 3 years.  We expect that by a child’s 3rd birthday, they are not still continuing to drop final consonants off of their words.  If a child continues to use final consonant deletion much past this age, he/she may need speech therapy to learn to include final consonants on words.

Auditory Bombardment Through Carry-Over ~ Included in Hub

Here’s an example of a great set of goals you can write for a child who needs to eliminate the process of final consonant deletion:

By the end of the IEP cycle, Client will eliminate the phonological process of final consonant deletion by producing final consonants in the therapy room with no more than 5 omissions of final consonants in 15 minutes of conversation with 2 verbal reminders as needed on 3 consecutive data collection days.

Benchmarks: 

Fortunately, the therapy to fix final consonant deletion is pretty straight forward.  You just need to help the children hear that there definitely are consonants on the ends of many words and then help them say those final consonants.  These final consonant deletion activities will gradually help a child learn to use those final consonants.  Use the activities below in order.  Don’t move on to the next activity until the child has mastered the previous one.

The first thing you will need to do is help the child hear the difference between words that have final consonants and words that do not.  To do this, you will need to come up with some pairs of words that are exactly the same except that one has a final consonant, and one does not. Fortunately for you, I have listed as many as I can think of here:

This final consonant deletion word list shows examples of minimal pairs – words that are exactly the same except that one word has a final consonant and the other does not.  Use these word pairs to help the child hear the difference between words with and without final consonants.

Or, download three free final consonant deletion worksheets with minimal pairs here:

Place two pictures in front of the child from the same pair.  Tell the child what each picture is called and then have him close his eyes.  Hide a penny (or a piece of candy) under one of the pictures.  If it sticks up and is obvious to the child, use two paper cups and put the cards on top of the cups and the candy/penny under one.  Then, have the child uncover his eyes and tell him which picture to look under.  (Or, if you don’t want to do the penny game, just tell the child to point to one picture or the other).

For example, if you had “bee” and “beak” out, you could say “look under ‘bee”.  Make sure you exaggerate the final consonant when you say it.  If he looks under the wrong picture, say “Oh listen, that word has a final/end sound (or doesn’t have a final/end sound)” and exaggerate the sound for him again.  Keep doing this until the child can correctly pick the right picture each time.  The child may be able to do this right away or it may take several weeks.  Keep at it!

Once the child can hear the difference between words that have final consonants and those that do not, it’s time to start having the child say those sounds in single words.

Put two words from a pair in front of the child again, but this time, tell the child that he will have to tell you which picture to look under.   Have the child close his eyes and then you hide the penny (or candy) under the picture with the final consonant (always under the one with the final consonant).  Have the child open his eyes and this time have him tell you where to look.

The child will probably say the word without a final consonant first so repeat the word back to the child and look under that picture.  (For example, if you’re doing long and short sounds with the pair “bee” and “beak”, hide it under the “beak”.  When the child tells you to look under “bee”, say “bee.  Ok, I’ll look under “bee”.  Oh, it’s not under bee”).  Then, have the child guess again.  If he says the word without the final consonant again, repeat his error back to him, and then model the correct pronunciation of the word.  In our example, you would say “you said ‘bee’ but it’s not there.  Do you mean, beaK?”  Then, help the child say the word with the final consonant so you can look under that picture.

Now that the child is able to produce the class of sounds in single words, you are ready to move on to having the child say final sounds in phrases and sentences.

Use the card pairs from before and have the child say two sentences, one with each word in the pair.  For example, he could say “I see a bee.  I see a beak”.  You could also have the child say one sentence with both words.  Make sure that the child correctly produces any final consonants that occur in the sentence.  Continue to ask the child to make up sentences with other words and make sure that all final consonants are present and accounted for.  Keep practicing this until the child is consistently using final consonants in simple sentences.

Once the child knows how to produce final consonants in sentences, you can start working on conversational speech.  Here is some information about working on sounds in conversation:

How to Work on Sounds in Conversational Speech

Check out my additional resources for eliminating final consonant deletion here:

Auditory Bombardment Through Carry-Over ~ Included in Hub

1-Hour Long Webinar Recording + Materials Kit ~ Great Therapy Approach for Children with Multiple Phonological Processes

Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.

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