In order to speak clearly and make themselves understood, a child must be able to say each speech sound accurately and be able to string these sounds together to make words and phrases. If a child cannot do this, it may be hard to understand them. Children may not acquire the full repertoire of speech sounds until they are 5-8 years old. There are developmental milestones for speech sound acquisition, therefore, different sounds are acquired at different ages. The sounds p, b, t, d, m and w are among the first sounds to be learnt and r and th may be among the last.
