One of the most common questions we hear from parents is whether their child’s speech and language development is appropriate for their age. Below you will find a list of expected speech milestones that your child should have most likely reached for their age. Please keep in mind that these speech milestones are guidelines and every child develops at their own pace. However, if you are concerned or unsure, don’t wait to seek help. Early intervention is key to establishing successful communication.
If you ever have any questions or concerns, please contact us at any time to arrange for a free screening.
Speech Milestones
12
Months
12 Month Speech Milestones
- Recognizes name
- Says 2-3 words besides “mama” and “dada”
- Imitates familiar words
- Understands simple instructions
- Recognizes words as symbols for objects: Car – points to garage, cat – meows
- Babbles and makes noises to self
18
Months
18 Month Speech Milestones
- Uses 10 to 20 words, mostly nouns
- Waves good-bye and plays pat-a-cake
- Makes the “sounds” of familiar animals
- Uses words such as “more” to make wants known
- Identifies 1-3 basic body parts
- Understands “no” and “in, on, open, closed, hot”
- Uses common expressions (ie. Uh oh)
- Points to pictures in a book
2
Years
2 Year Speech Milestones
- Asks “what’s that?” And “where’s my?”
- Uses minimum 50 words
- Uses 2-word negative phrases such as “no want”
- Forms some plurals by adding “s”; book, books
- Gives first name, holds up fingers to tell age
- Combines nouns and verbs “mommy go”
- Refers to self as “me” rather than by name
- Follows 2 step commands (go upstairs and get me a diaper)
- Starting to use more verbs and prepositions such as in, on, under
- Starting to use early pronouns such as “me, mine, you”
2.5
Years
2 1/2 Year Speech Milestones
- Has between 150-500 words
- Uses short sentences like “me want more” or “me want cookie”
- Knows big, little and a some, alot
- Carries on ‘conversation’ with self and dolls
- Produces 2-3 word phrases
- Should be able to state his name, age and gender
- Using pronouns I, you, me correctly
- Grammatical markers starting to emerge such as -ing, past tense
Is understood by others 50-70% of time - Pronounces early sounds such as p, b, m, h, w, t, d, n and vowels
3
Years
3 Year Speech Milestones
- Has a vocabulary between 500-1000 words
- Starting to sound like a “little adult”
- Talks about things that happened in the past
- Answers what, who, where questions
- Talks to other children as well as adults
- Has a sentence length of 4-5 words
- Begins to obey requests like “put the block under the chair”
- Pronouns such as he, she, they begin to emerge
- Knows his or her last name, name of street on which he/she lives and several nursery rhymes
- Ca usually repeat 4 digits and words of four syllables
- Extensive verbalization as he carries out activities or plays make-believe.
- Is understood by others 75% of the time
- Pronounces sounds such as k, g, f, s, z, y
4
Years
4 Year Speech Milestones
- Has a vocabulary between 1500-2000 words
- Identifies triangles, circles and squares
- Uses many descriptive words and adverbs
- Can count to ten and know his colours
- Asks why and how questions
- Can retell a simple story
- Has a sentence length of 5-6 words
- Defies objects by their use (you eat with a fork) and make associations between words (feet and hands go together because they are body parts)
- Knows spatial relations like “on top”, “behind”, “far” and “near”
- Uses more adult-like grammatical forms
- Is understood most of the time by others
- Pronounces l, l-blends, s-blends, sh, ch, j
5
Years
5 Year Speech Milestones
- Knows his or her address
- Identifies a penny, nickel and dime
- Knows common opposites like “day/night”, “same/different”
- Distinguishes left and right hand in herself
- Uses all types of sentences, for example “let’s go to the store after we eat”
- Can retell a story with enough details to make sense
- Knows simple time concepts such as morning, night, day, later, after, tomorrow, yesterday, today
- Can begin to recognize letters and simple words and can identify rhymes
- More complex grammatical forms emerge such as irregular past and plurals, future tense
- Pronounces r, r-blends, v
6
Years
6 Year Speech Milestones
- Pronounces /th/ sound
- Recognizes some words by sight
- Overall speech should be clear and grammatically correct
- Should be able to carry on a simple adult-like conversation
- Understands comparatives and superlative adjectives such as big, bigger, biggest
- Has phonological awareness skills (ie. Rhyming, knowing that words are made up of sounds)
- Language used should be socially useful and appropriate