Listeners' identification of young children's productions of minimally contrastive words and predictive relationships between accurately identified words and intelligibility scores obtained from a 100-word spontaneous speech sample were determined for 36 children with typically developing speech (TDS) and 36 children with speech sound disorders (SSD) of unknown origin in three age groups (3+, 4+ and 5+ years). Each child's productions of 78-word stimuli were recorded and presented to unfamiliar adults for forced-choice identification. Results of a two-way MANOVA (two groups by three ages) indicated that the TDS group had significantly higher (p < 0.001) percent consonant items correct (PCIC) and percent syllable shape items correct. Stepwise regression analyses revealed significant predictors of intelligibility scores to be PCIC (adjusted R(2) = 0.10, p = 0.04) for the TDS group and PCIC and percent vowel items correct (adjusted R(2) = 0.63, p < 0.001) for the SSD group.