Speech and Language Milestones: 0-5 years old
Understanding that each child develops differently, milestones are a guide to help parents, caregivers, and educators understand what they should see at certain ages.
Birth to 12 months
- Alerted to sounds
- Makes sounds differently depending on they feel
- Reaches for objects
- Says one or two words
- Turns and looks toward voices
- Looks at objects and follows with their eyes
- Raises arms to be picked up
- Pushes away unwanted items
13 – 18 months
- Beginning to understand questions
- Can follow simple directions (e.g., “come here”)
- Beginning to identify body parts
- Shakes head for “no” and nods for “yes”
- Uses gestures when excited
- Understands and uses words for common objects, actions and people
- Speech expression contains of long strings of sounds, syllables and real words
19 – 24 months
- Uses and understands at least 50 different words
- Putting two words together
- Uses words more often than gestures
- Follows directions that are two steps
- May not always have clear speech but there is a pattern to what they say
- Uses words like me, mine, you
- Beginning to use possessives, like “Mommy’s shoe”
2 – 3 years old
- Combining 2-3 words often
- Uses words to get your attention
- Can say their name when asked
- Adds -ing to words (e.g., playing, eating)
- Adds -ed to words (e.g., played looked)
- Asks “why” and “how” questions
- Correctly produces most vowels in words
- Speech is becoming clearer and can produce p, b, m, h, w, d, n in words
- Speech can be understood by unfamiliar listeners
3 – 4 years old
- Comparing things (e.g., more, less, longer, shorter)
- Can tell a story from a book or video
- Using location words (e.g., inside, on, under)
- Pretending to do everyday tasks (e.g., reading)
- Words and sentences are becoming longer and longer
- Speaking smoothly – they are able to be understood by unfamiliar listeners
- They produce sounds in a consonant cluster (e.g., cl, sl) but may not produce the entire word clearly
- Uses words like “the”, “a” while forming sentences
4 -5 years old
- Skilled communicators who are producing longer sentences.
- Tells stories with complexity, including a main character and connected information
- Uses at least one irregular plural form (e.g., feet)
- Understanding more complex location words – behind, beside, between
- Uses words to indicate time (e.g., yesterday and tomorrow)
- Can follow directions and rules to play games
- Can identify the front of a book and its title; can navigate a book without assistance.
- Speech is understandable in conversation, with few sound substitutions.