Speech Sound Development Guide
*Speech Sound Development Guide (Speech Sounds Norms taken from Goldman Fristoe Test of Articulation -2, 2000). This information depicts a general range of development and is intended as a guide only.
2 Years
Use a limited number of sounds in their words – often these are p, b, d, m, n
Speech may not be clear
Children will also often miss the ends off words at this stage.
Children tend to substitute sounds for those that are easier to say e.g. car becomes tar, sun becomes tun etc.
3 Years
Speech is becoming clearer
A range of new sounds are emerging- f, k, g, t, w
Many children will shorten longer words, such as saying ‘nana’ instead of ‘banana
Sound substitutions are still evident especially with sounds such as sh, ch, j, l, r, th.
They may also have difficulty where lots of sounds happen together in a word, e.g. they may say ‘pider’ instead of 'spider.'
4 Years
Speech is becoming clearer and mostly intelligible
Most sounds are in use, new sounds emerging are ch, j, sh, v, l, z
Many children will shorten longer words, such as saying ‘nana’ instead of ‘banana’
Some sound substitutions are still evident especially with sounds such as th and r.
They may also have difficulty where lots of sounds happen together in a word, e.g. they may say ‘pider’ instead of 'spider.'
5 Years
Uses most sounds effectively
Speech is intelligible
Complicated words may still be difficult to produce
May find r and th difficult to produce up until around 6 years old