Speech Sound Development Norms: “What should I expect for my child?”
“Is it typical that my three-year-old can not produce the /R/ sound yet?”
I’ve heard questions like this many times-and I understand the confusion!
As a parent, it can be difficult decipher whether or not your child’s speech sound errors are age-appropriate. According to a recent compilation of 15 studies, here are the average ages English speakers acquire their consonants:
2-3 YEARS
By 3 years most children should have the following sounds: p (pig), b (big), m (moo), d (dig), n (nap), h (hot), t (toss), k (cat), g (go), w (win), ng (wing), f (fin), y (yes)
4 YEARS
By 4 years, most children should have the following sounds: l (love), j (jump), ch (cheese), s (sun), v (van), sh (shoe), z (zebra)
5 YEARS
By 5 years, most children should have the following sounds: r (run), zh (measure), voiced th (they)
6 YEARS
By 6 years, most children should have all sounds, including voiceless th (think)
Now let’s look at intelligibility. “Intelligibility” is a fancy speech pathologist word for the percentage in which the speech output is understood. Below are the percentages that unfamiliar listeners should understand your child’s speech when they combine these sounds into sentences:
2 YEARS: 50% intelligible
3 YEARS: 75% intelligible
4 YEARS: 90% intelligible
5 YEARS: 100% intelligible
By the time children are entering Kindergarten, there should be minimal articulation errors, other than the occasional error when producing the /TH/ sound, which is considered age-appropriate. Moreover, unfamiliar listeners should have no problem understanding them when speaking.
It is important to keep track of these norms because age five is when they start to enter the world of academics. Kindergarten is when children begin to read and write and if they are having difficulties with pronouncing sounds, they are most likely going to spell it incorrectly.
It is also important to recognize that these are the average ages children acquire their speech sounds. It is also not uncommon for sounds to emerge in certain positions but not others. Please contact a speech-language pathologist should you have any concerns or questions about your child’s speech sound development.
With Love,
SG Speech Therapy
*McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Available from: https://ajslp.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2701897