Milestones - Birth to 3 Years
First 3 Months
- Becomes startled at loud noises
- Is soothed by calm, gentle voices
- Likes to cuddle and enjoys being held
- Cried, gurgles, grunts, says “ah”
- Has strong muscles in cheeks and tongue
4 to 6 Months
- Tries to “talk” to you
- Enjoys interacting with you and smiles at you
- Establishes eye contact with mother
- Watches your face with interest when you talk
- Coos and squeals for attention
- Has a distinctive cry when hungry
- Laughs during play
- Repeats some sounds often
6 to 12 Months
- Babbles using a variety of sounds (i.e., baba, dada, nana)
- Begins to use jargon (babbling that sounds like real talking)
- Uses speech intentionally for the first time
- Uses gestures to communicate (waving bye, pointing)
- Tries to sing along with radio or TV
- Laughs and may imitate cough
- Protests, requests, and “comments”, with gestures and vocalizations
- Understands some common words when used with gestures (i.e., “bye-bye”, “up”, “give me”, and own name)
- Responds to own name
- Understands “no”
- Recognizes words for common objects
12 to 18 Months
- Uses 3-10 words, primarily nouns
- Expresses wants by using gestures and vocalizations
- Nods “yes” and shakes head for “no”
- Understands simple questions/statements (i.e., “Where is your nose?”, “Give me…”)
- Recognizes pictures of familiar people
- Enjoys rhythm and likes to “dance” to music
- Plays by him/herself
18 to 24 Months
- Says some 2-word sentences such as “more eat”, “all gone”, “me go”
- Asks for a cookie or toy
- Pronouns emerge (i.e., me, mine)
- Asks questions (i.e., “go bye-bye?”, “Where mommy?”)
- Uses 50-100+ words
- Understands “where is mommy/daddy?”
- Understands more words than can speak/say
- Understands 300+ words
- Enjoys listening to stories
- Follows two-step commands (i.e., “Get the ball and put it on the table.”)
- Knows 5 body parts
- Speech is understood 25-50% of the time
2 to 3 Years
- Combines words in 3-4 word sentences (i.e., “Me do it.”)
- Uses 50-250 words
- Uses action verbs (i.e., “go”)
- Answers simple questions about objects (i.e., “What’s your name?”, “Which one is the big doll?”)
- Understands 500-900 words
- Understands concepts such as one/all, on/off, big/little, up/down
- Points to pictures in a book when named
- Speech is understood 50-75% of the time
- Uses consonants (p, b, m, n, h, w) correctly
- Uses vowels correctly
- Occasionally leaves out ending consonants
- Frequently eliminates medial consonants
- Frequently eliminates or replaces final consonants
Milestones - 3 to 12 Years
3 to 4 Years
- Tells first and last name
- Tells a short story (i.e., two kids played blocks)
- Gives directions such as “Fix this for me.”
- Asks many questions (i.e., what, where, why)
- Expresses feelings (i.e., happy, sad)
- Consistently uses plurals, possessives, verbs
- Uses regular past tense verbs (“jumped”)
- Uses 4-5 word sentences
- Understands questions about a picture story (i.e., “Where did the dog go?”)
- Understands 1,200-2,000 words or more
- Uses 800-1500 words or more
- Follows 3-step directions
- Plays in groups
- Speech is 80% intelligible
- Understands past and future
- Sequences 2 events in order
4 to 5 Years
- Describes objects and events
- Can show you “top”, “bottom”, and several colors
- Uses 900-2000 words or more
- Communicates easily with peers and adults
- Uses 8-10 word sentences
- Uses grammatically correct sentences
- Understands 2,800 or more words
- Answers questions regarding object function (i.e. “What do you do with a spoon?”)
- Answers complex “wh” questions
- Demonstrates complex role plays
- Shows interest in group activity
- Plays simple games
- Emergence of segmenting words into syllables
- Speech is 100% intelligible
5 to 6 Years
- Expressive vocabulary of approximately 2,000-3,000 words
- Uses almost all adult forms and structures, with occasional errors
- Tells stories, asks questions, exchanges information
- Tells imaginative tales and familiar stories
- Can answer telephone and carry on logical conversation
- Names days of the week in order
- Understands approximately 13,000 words
- Follows 3-part directions
- Asks how questions
- Uses past tense and future tense appropriately
- Uses conjunctions
- Names opposites
6 to 7 Years
- Names some letters, numbers, and currencies
- Sequences numbers
- Understands left and right
- Engages in conversations
- Has a receptive vocabulary of 20,000 words or more
- Average expressive vocabulary is 5,000 words or more
- Uses 6 word sentences or more
- Understands most concepts of time
- Uses most morphological markers appropriately
- Recites the alphabet
- Counts to 100 by rote
- Narratives are true “stories” with central focus, high resolution point, and resolution
7 to 9 Years
- A few errors in noun phrases (“much bricks”) persist
- Literate language for academic participation develops
- Articulation is mostly error-free
- Some difficulty with complex words may persist (aluminum)
- Phonological knowledge is used in spelling
- Stories contain complete episodes with internal goals, motivations, and reactions of characters; some multiple-episode stories appear
- Language is used to establish and maintain social exchanges
- Increased perspective-taking allows for more successful persuasion
- Provide conversational repairs by defining terms or giving background information
- Begins to understand jokes and riddles based on sound similarities
- Word definitions include synonyms and categories
- Some words understood to have multiple meanings
- Capacity for production of figurative language emerges
- School introduces new words not encountered in conversation
9 to 12 Years
- Syntax used in school text is more complex than that used in oral language
- Use of word order variations increases in writing (i.e., “Around the house we put a fence.”)
- Metacognitive skills emerge
- Morphophonological knowledge develops and is used in spelling
- Stories include complex, embedded, and interactive episodes
- Understand jokes and riddles based on spoken ambiguity
- Vocabulary used in school text is more abstract and specific than that used in conversation
- Students are expected to acquire new information from written texts
- Can explain relationships between meanings of multiple meaning words
- Understands most common idioms