If your child is not meeting these milestones, talk to your physician and contact your local early intervention program (birth to age three), your local university, school or Therapedics for a free screening.
By the time your child is 12 months old:
By three years
By Four years
By the time your child is 12 months old:
- She should use a variety of vowel and consonant sounds.
- She should be putting sounds together in babbling or repeating of syllable combinations
- She should be taking turns making sounds back and forth with you.
- She should be imitating movement, gestures, sounds and first words or word approximations.
- She should be asking for things by using a gesture together with sounds
- She should follow simple, familiar directions with gesture cues (you point at something)
- She should make attempts at saying words.
- She should understand a lot more words than she can say.
- She should have at least 10-20 words in her vocabulary
- She should follow most familiar directions
- She should look at you when you call her name and maintain eye contact as you are talking
- She should initiate “talking”
- She should use sounds like b, p, m, n, t, d, k, g in most of her word attempts
- She should show an interest in looking at books.
- She should use more than 50 words
- She should put two or more words together in phrases/sentences
- She should follow 2-step familiar directions
- She should use additional sounds like n, w in words
- She should show an interest in having books read to her, helping turn pages, point to things on the page
By three years
- She should be using simple, complete 3-4+ word sentences
- She should relay simple personal events using sentences
- She does not follow most directions familiar or unfamiliar.
- She should appropriately answer most simple questions
- She should have additional sounds like f, v, y, ng in words
- She should pretend to read books and may even begin to recognize a few letters or numbers
By four years
- She should relay events or maintain conversation using complex sentences
- She should include additional sounds like s, z, sh, ch, j, l, r, th in words
By Four years
- She should hear you when you call from another room.
- She should hear television or radio at the same loudness level as other family members.
- She should be able to answer simple "who?", "what?", "where?", and "why?" questions.
- She should be able to talk about activities at school or at friends' homes.
- People outside of the family usually understand child's speech.
- She should use a lot of sentences that have 4 or more words.
- Usually talks easily without repeating syllables or words.
- She should recognize letters or letter sounds
- She should sound out simple words
- She should meet grade expectations for reading or spelling
