Communication Milestones

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The following is a list of typical communication milestones by age.  If your child's development is not achieving these milestones a referral to a Speech-Language Pathologist is recommended.

A child developing at 2 years of age should:

• Use at least 50 words
• Be starting to combine words (i.e. "more juice")
• Be able to point to pictures in a book when asked
• Be able to follow 1-2 part directions within daily routines (i.e. "pick up your toys and put them away")

A child developing at 3 years of age should:

• Be using a variety of words (500)
• Be combining words into 3-4 word phrases
• Demonstrate understanding of concepts like in/on/under, big/little
• Be easy to understand by unfamiliar listeners
• Understand basic questions (i.e.who/what/where)

A child developing at 4 years of age should:

• Be using sentences of 4-6 words
• Be using grammar forms like is, are, walking
• Follow 3-4 part directions
• Play and take turns with others
• Be able to re-tell a simple story with a beginning and end

A child developing at 5 years of age should:

• Be using grammatically correct sentences of 5-7 words
• Use pronouns correctly (i.e. he/his/him/they)
• Understand a variety of concepts like long, short, front, top
• Describe objects by what they do (i.e. "things that you cut with")
• Describe objects by feature (i.e. "they all have wheels")
• Answer reasoning questions (i.e. "What do you do when you are hungry?")
• Describe recent events/stories in the correct sequence