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