The present review has highlighted the development of native speech perception from infancy into adulthood and its influences on non-native speech perception. Escudero’s [7, 8] Linguistic Perception model formalises this development as a perception grammar in which individuals map relevant auditory dimensions onto speech sounds in accordance with the acoustic dimensions used in speech production in their speech environments (referred to as ‘optimal perception’). Individuals’ differing experiences with language, including varieties of the same language, thus influence which auditory dimensions are used and how these are used in the perception of speech sounds in unfamiliar non-native languages, different dialects and second languages.