Towards theend of the 4th year of life, the r sound (previously pronounced as j or l or omitted) should usually appear in the child's speech. Around the age of 4 - 5 years, the sounds sh, ¿, cz, dż usually appear, although they can still be pronounced as s, z, c, dz.

Thespeech of a 5 year old child is already in principle intelligible. The child should already be able to repeat the sounds s, z, cz, j, although in everyday speech they can still be replaced by easier sounds (s, z, c, dz). The r sound should also be pronounced by now, although it often only appears at this stage. Consonant groups are still simplified both in the onset and in the middle, but should already be pronounced correctly by six-year-olds.

As a guide, a one year old child utters 3 to 5 words, a 2 - 3 year old child: up to 400 words, a 3 year old child: approx. 100 words, a 5 year old child: approx. 2,000 - 3,000 words, a 6 year old child: 3,000 - 4,500 words; in comparison, an adult 7,000 - 9,000 words. The earliest words to appear are words that denote objects and actions (nouns and verbs) and demonstrative pronouns (to, such, tu) and the negation participle no. The child successively uses words that denote qualities (adjectives and adverbs) and relations and relationships (prepositions and conjunctions). Two-year-olds use words to meet their needs, to help them communicate with others and to refer to their immediate environment. Above the age of three, new groups of meanings emerge to denote a variety of features (colour, shape, size, weight) as well as more generalised concepts describing mental activities, social and cultural phenomena (Przetacznik - Gierowska, Makiełło - Jarża, 1992).

So when to contact a specialist?

• when most children of your child's age already speak, but your child does not;
• when you have a suspicion that your child does not hear properly (in this case you should go to the Phoniatric Clinic);
• when certain sounds do not appear at the time or are still substituted by easier sounds, even though the child should already be speaking correctly (e.g. s for ś at the age of four or s for sz at the end of the fifth year);
• special attention should be paid to the substitution of sounds by other sounds that do not appear in Polish (e.g. r with the so-called French r) or having a wrong articulatory system (e.g. inserting the tongue between the teeth when pronouncing the sh) - these defects do not disappear spontaneously (!).

During the consultation, it may turn out that our fears were wrong, however, the specialist may also conclude that speech therapy or other help is indispensable. It is important that, without consulting the speech therapist, you do not constantly correct your child when he cannot say a particular sound. This behaviour can only lead to frustration on the part of both the person doing the correction and the person who is speaking incorrectly, because the child really cannot say it any other way.

In such a situation, the correct realization will usually only be possible after appropriate articulation exercises that improve the oral organs (e.g. the tongue) and then make the correct pronunciation of the given voice possible. Of course, the child cannot be punished for poor speech (it is not on purpose!), but should be encouraged to practise and praised for the results. It is often helpful for the child to be told that other children also have such problems and that some children did, but have already dealt with them (if you know someone like this, it is worth giving an example).