Speaking clearly: what's typical for children?

How does my child learn different sounds?

Children learn sounds by listening to people speaking around them. They have been tuning into the sounds around them since before they were born and they carry on developing their ability to tune into environmental sounds and speech sounds. Babies begin by playing with sounds first of all, then babble. This babble develops into longer strings using a wider range of sounds.

At what ages do children learn different sounds?

As children are learning to talk, their sound system develops gradually. This means that they cannot say all their sounds straight away, as some are later to develop than others. As a general guide, the table below shows the ages sounds develop by (this guideline is for children who speak English as their home language).

Approximate age

Usually children will:

18‐24 months

Use a limited number of sounds in their words – often these are p, b, t, d, m and w. Children will also often miss the ends off words at this stage. They can usually be understood about half of the time.

2‐3 years

Use a wider range of speech sounds. However, many children will shorten longer words, such as saying ‘nana’ instead of ‘banana’. They may also have difficulty where lots of sounds happen together in a word, e.g. they may say ‘pider’ instead of 'spider.'

They often have problems saying more difficult sounds like ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’ and ‘r.’ However, people that know them can mostly understand them.

3‐4 years

Have difficulties with a small number of sounds – for example ‘r’, ‘w’, ‘l’, ‘f’, ‘th’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’ and ‘z’.

4‐5 years

Use most sounds effectively. However, they may have some difficulties with more difficult words such as 'scribble' or 'elephant'.

We expect small children to have unclear speech. They are learning how to do so many things at once! However by the age of 4 and a half we expect children to be understood by an unfamiliar listener; a neighbour or parent's friend who is not around them often. If you feel you child's speech is unclear and you are concerned then Speech and Language Therapy may be able to help.