How and When Does Your Child Hear and Talk?

What Age Should a Child Understand Language?

How Should a Child Express Himself or Herself?

When Should a Child Say Certain Sounds?

Speech & Language Milestones          Yes / No

Birth - 5 months:

• Localizes sounds by turning head

• Uses sounds or gestures to indicate wants

• Frequently coos, gurgles and makes pleasure and displeasure sounds

• Uses a different cry to express different needs

• Smiles at familiar faces and will quiet when recognizing familiar voice

• Looks and smiles at people when talked to

• Moves eyes in direction of sounds

• Babbling sounds begin to sound speech-like with many different sounds

• including p, b, and m

6-12 months:

• Moves eyes in direction of sounds 

• Listens when spoken to

• Recognizes certain everyday words; “cup”, “cookie” and responds to requests; “come here” and “want more?” 

• Listens to and imitates some adult speech sounds/intonation patterns

• Babbles using long and short groups of sounds

• Understands phrases like “no-no,” “all gone,” and “bye-bye”

• Communicates using appropriate “gesture language”
  (shake head for “no”)

• Begins to change babbling to jargon

• Uses speech intentionally for the first time

• Say “mama” or “dada” for parents

• Has 1 or 2 words

1 to 2 years:

• Looks for hidden objects

• Points or gestures to communicate or identify needs

• Talks in single words, 

• Uses many different consonant sound at the beginning of words

• Often omits some initial consonants and almost all final consonants

• Uses echolalia and jargon

• Has 3-20 words (mostly nouns) in expressive vocabulary

• Receptively identify 1-3 body parts

• Follows simple directions

• Uses words more frequently than jargon

• Has an expressive vocabulary of 50 to 100 words

• Has a receptive vocabulary or 300 or more words

• Starts to combine nouns and verbs (“more cookie”)

• Begins to use pronouns

• Understood by familiar listeners and is approximately 25-50%

• Intelligible to strangers

• Names a few familiar objects

• Identifies 5-6 body parts on self or a doll

• Begins to understand adjectives in phrases

2-3 years

• Understands the differences in meaning (“go-stop”, “in-on”, “big-little”,· “up down”

• Speech is 50-75% intelligible

• Consistently uses initial consonants

• Frequently uses medial consonants

• Frequently omits or substitutes final consonants

• Begins to demonstrate turn-taking and sharing behaviors

• Follows simple commands and answers simple questions

• Uses 2-4 word phrases to talk about and ask for things

• Has a receptive vocabulary of 500-900 words

• Has an expressive vocabulary of 50-250 or more words

• Speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time

3-4 years

• Spontaneous sentences approximately 4 or more words 

• Is at least 80% intelligible to familiar listener

• Use of irregular plurals, future tense verbs, conjunctions, and contractions emerge

• Usually talks easily without repeating syllables or words

• Understands object functions

• Names primary colors

• Talks about activities at school or at friends’ homes

• Has a 1,000-2,000 or more word receptive vocabulary

• Has a 800-1,500 or more word expressive vocabulary

• Appropriately uses is, are, and am in sentences

• Talks about activities at school or at a friends’ house

• Tells 2 events in chronological order

• Sentences average 5 to 5 ½ words in length

• People other than family usually understand child’s speech

4-5 years

• Consistently uses verbally and grammatically correct sentences

• Completes analogies

• Identifies at least 6 capital letters

• Recognizes absurdities in pictures

• Identifies all basic colors

• Able to attend to a short story and answers simple question related to it

• Hears and understands most of what is said at home and in school

• Understands passive voice statements

• Likes to pretend and act out stories

• Understands and answers complex 2-part questions

• Significantly reduces number of persistent sound omissions and substitutions

• Says most sounds correctly except a few like l, s, r, v, z, j, ch, sh, th 

• Uses grammatically correct sentences of 4-8 words

• Sentences provide details (ie: “I like to play with my cars”.)

5-6 years

• Understands up to approximately 13,500 words

• Follows 3 step directions

• Asks “how” questions

• Knows number concepts to 7

• Understands right and left

• Uses past and future tenses appropriately

• Uses conjunctions

• Names opposites

• Uses up to 2,200 words

• Sentence length to averages 6 words

• Accurately relays a story that sticks to a topic

• Exchanges information and asks questions

6-7 years

• Understands up to approximately 20,000 words

• Names letters, numbers and currencies

• Is detailed in descriptions

• Uses irregular verb forms

• Names days, months and numbers in serial order

• Comprehends future and past tenses

• Understands humor

• Wonders about abstract events like how things work

• Counts to 100

• Uses most morphological markers appropriately

• Sentences average up to 7 words
  
  If your child does not appear to be reaching age appropriate milestones, a Speech-Language Pathologist can provide a Comprehensive Evaluation.
  

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