Speech and Language Milestones

BIRTH - 6 MONTHS

• Indicates pleasure (coos) and displeasure sounds (crying, fussing)
• Smiles when spoken to
• Recognizes familiar voices
• Turns head toward sounds and voices
• Watches your face as you speak

6 MONTHS - 1 YEAR

• Babbles
• Understands single words
• Follows simple commands with gestures
• Responds to own name
• Imitates speech sounds and simple intonation patterns
• Listens when spoken to
• By 1 year, uses 2-3 words to label objects or people
• Understands "no"
• Attempts to communicate through gestures or actions

1 - 2 YEARS

• Uses jargon or unintelligible speech with adult-like intonation
• Produces 8-10 words, mostly nouns, though sometimes omits initial consonants and almost all final consonants in words
• Understands and follows simple commands without gestures
• Combines gestures with vocalizations
• Approximates words in imitation
• Points to body parts
• Understands actions words
• Enjoys being read to
• Points to pictures, objects, and family members
• Requests familiar foods by name
• Makes environmental and animal sounds

2-3 YEARS

• Can produce 40+ words by 2 years
• Requests items by name
• Answers simple questions
• Uses question inflection
• Begins to use pronouns
• Understands spatial concepts
• Begins to use plural endings
• Says full name
• Typically uses most initial sound consonants, however, may omit medial consonants and omit/substitute final consonants
• By age 3, speech is 50% - 75% intelligible to strangers

3-4 YEARS

• Understands the function of objects
• Groups common objects (sorts)
• Identifies colors
• Understands opposites
• Follows 2 - 3 step directions
• Has fun with language. Understands absurdities and simple jokes.
• Asks and answers simple who, what, where, and why questions
• Begins to ideate and express thoughts and emotions
• Able to repeat sentences
• Expressive language contains mostly nouns and verbs
• Becoming conscious of the future and past
• Has a receptive vocabulary of 1,200 to 2,000 words and an expressive vocabulary of 800 to 1,500
• Speech rate begins to increase
• Uses the verbs is, are, and am in sentences
• Can use "ing" endings
• Engages in topic maintenance
• Speech is approximately 80% intelligible to strangers

4 - 5 YEARS

• Attends to short stories
• Understands quantity, time, spatial concepts
• Uses 4 to 8 words in sentences
• Understands complex questions
• Asks for detailed answers to questions
• Can explain "how to" related to familiar activities
• Asks and answers "why" questions
• Defines objects
• Able to identify objects within categories
• Uses a variety of grammatical and morphological structures (i.e. irregular plurals, possessive and reflexive pronouns; future tense, and comparatives)
• Produces consonants with 80% - 90% accuracy
• Speech is typically intelligible to strangers

5 - 6 YEARS

• Follows 3-4 step directives
• Engages in conversations
• Asks "how" questions
• Describes objects, people and places
• Understands rhyming
• Uses grammatical structures such as conjunctions, and the past and future tenses consistently
• Reverses sounds occasionally
• Tells creative and imaginative stories