Communication Milestones
Language Milestones
By 6 months your child should be able to:
Babble and try to imitate sounds. Can look towards the sound of music and sounds. Can chuckle and laugh and vocalize excitement and displeasure.
By 12 months your child should be able to:
Can use a word consistently like “mama or dada” and imitate more sounds. Will start to identify basic body parts, and follow simple directions with a demonstration.
By 18 months your child should be able to:
Say or imitate 8-10 words and can attend to pictures. Can shake head “no” and follow 1-step directives.
By 24 months your child should be able to:
Say 15-20 words and can point to pictures in a book when named. Can use words more than gestures to communicate.
Understands basic questions like “Where’s your shoe?”
By 3 years your child should be able to:
Use 50-100 different words. Can match colors and answer simple “yes/no”, “what” and “where” questions. Can count to 3. Likes to play with other children.
By 4 years your child should be able to:
Starts to use complex sentences. Sentences may range in 4-8 words in length. Can count to 10 and can talk about feelings.
By 5 years your child should be able to:
Say all speech sounds in words and can name letters and words. Will follow classroom directions like “Draw a circle on your paper around something you eat.” Hear and understand most of what is said in home and in school. Can keep a conversation going with another person.
Speech Milestones
By age 2
Speech is about 50 % intelligible; child may still omit final consonants; produces P B M T D N H W sounds
By age 3
Speech is about 70% intelligible; syllable shapes CV (“ba”), VC (“up”), CVC (“dad”), CVCV (“baby”), produces K G F Y sounds
By age 4
Speech is 90-100% intelligible, produces 3-4 syllable words, produces S Z L V CH SH sounds
By age 5
Speech is 100% intelligible; produces R sound and S blends and L blends
By age 6
Speech is 100% intelligible, produces TH sound and R blends
Stuttering In Young Children
As children are growing, their language understanding and expression grows at a very rapid rate. There are times when the child’s brain and desire to express actually is working more rapidly than their ability to express. For these children, it is not uncommon for them to walk through a time where there is a marked increase in stuttering when they are speaking. Often as a parent it is difficult to know if the stuttering will be outgrown or if it needs attention from a speech therapist.
Not all stuttering behaviors will eliminate themselves without some intentional treatment. A parent will likely want to seek a consultation with a speech therapist when seeing behaviors such as
-
Repetitions of sounds, parts of words and whole words (e.g. “wha…wha… what are you….you….you d..d…d…..d..doing”).
-
Prolongations or stretching of speech sounds (e.g., “whaaaaaaat are you doing”).
-
Blocking or struggling to get words out. This is when the mouth is positioned to say a sound, sometimes for several seconds, before the sound is said. After some effort the person may complete the word.
-
Pausing for extended periods of time.
-
Frustration because talking takes a lot of effort.
-
“Secondary” physical signs, such as blinking, leg slapping and facial movements when they are trying to get out a word.
Contact me to schedule an assessment.