Typical Speech Sound Development

This table provides a guide for when most children develop the sounds that we use for speaking in English. If you have concerns regarding your child’s speech sound development, please contact a Speech Pathologist.

Age Acquired	Speech Sound
2 years	p
3 years	b     m     d     n     h     t ​k      g     w    ng      f     y
4 years	l     j     ch     v     sh   s     z (without lisp)
5 years	r ​  zh (as in 'asia')    th (as in 'this')
6-7 years	th (as in 'thumb')

Based on 15 English speech acquisition studies compiled by McLeod and Crowe (2018)