Which statement accurately reflects typical phonological development by age 3?

By age 3, children typically begin to refine their phonological skills, leading to a decrease in certain phonological processes that are part of normal speech development. The statement that accurately reflects this stage is that children generally stop using weak syllable deletions. This means that by this age, many children will consistently produce multi-syllabic words correctly without omitting weak syllables, which is a common phonological pattern seen in younger children.

At younger ages, it's common for children to simplify complex words, often dropping the less stressed, or weak syllables to make pronunciation easier. However, as they approach age 3, they start mastering these syllables, indicating progress in their phonological development and an expansion of their expressive vocabulary.

The other statements refer to phonological processes that may still be present in children at this age, such as stopping, final consonant deletion, and consonant cluster reductions, which are common in earlier years and may still be observed in some children up to age 3, making them less accurate representations of typical development for this age group.