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1-2 years
Speech sounds: p b m h w
Receptive Language (Hearing and Understanding):
- Points to a few body parts when you ask.
- Follows 1-part directions, like “Roll the ball” or “Kiss the baby.”
- Responds to simple questions, like “Who’s that?” or “Where’s your shoe?”
- Listens to simple stories, songs, and rhymes.
- Points to pictures in a book when you name them.
Expressive Language (Talking):
- Uses lots of new words.
- Starts to name pictures in books.
- Asks questions, like “What’s that?” and “Where’s kitty?”
- Puts 2 words together, like “more apple,” “no bed,” and “mommy book.”
2-3 years
Speech sounds: k g f t d n y
Receptive Language (Hearing and Understanding):
- Understands opposites, like go-stop, big-little, and up-down.
- Follows 2-part directions, like “Get the spoon and put it on the table.”
- Understands new words quickly.
Expressive Language (Talking):
- Has a word for almost everything.
- Talks about things that are not in the room.
- Uses words like in, on, and under.
- Uses two-or-three words to talk about and ask for things.
- Asks “Why?”
- Puts 3 words together to talk about things. May repeat some words and sounds.
3-4 years
Speech sounds: r l s ch sh z begin to develop
Receptive Language (Hearing and Understanding):
- Responds when you call from another room.
- Understands words for some colors, like red, blue, and green.
- Understands words for some shapes, like circle and square.
Expressive Language (Talking):
- Answers simple who, what and where questions.
- Says rhyming words like, hat-cat.
- Uses pronouns like I, you, me, we, and they.
- Uses some plural words, like toys, birds, and buses.
- Most people understand what your child says.
- Asks when and how questions.
- Puts 4 words together. May make some mistakes, like “I goed to school.”
- Talks about what happened during the day. Uses about 4 sentences at a time.
4-5 years
Speech sounds: says all speech sounds with some mistakes
Receptive Language (Hearing and Understanding):
- Understands words for order, like first, next, and last.
- Understands words for time, like yesterday, today and tomorrow.
- Follows longer directions, like “Put your pajamas on, brush your teeth, and then pick out a book.”
- Follows classroom directions, like “Draw a circle on your paper around something you eat.”
- Hears and understands most of what she hears at home and in school.
Expressive Language (Talking):
- Responds to “What did you say?”
- Talks without repeating sounds or words most of the time.
- Names letters and numbers.
- Uses sentences that have more than 1 action word, like jump, play, and get. May make some mistakes, like “Zach gots 2 video games but I got one.”
- Tells a short story.
- Keeps a conversation going.
- Talks in different ways, depending on the listener and place. Your child may use short sentences with younger children. He may talk louder outside than inside.
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Developmental milestones are from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association