Communication Milestones for kids from twelve months to five years
At 12 months, children can usually:
- Approximately 10 words
- Respond to their name
- Recognise greetings
- Recognise some familiar people and objects
- Make eye contact
- Start to use sounds, gestures and a few words
- Babble
- Copy sounds or noises
At 18 months, children can usually:
- Up to 50 words and familiar short phrases
- Follow simple instructions
- Point to familiar objects when instructed
- Recognise some familiar people and objects
- Point to familiar pictures in books
- 6 to 20 single words
- Copy lots of words and noises
- Name some body parts
- Engage in pretend play with toys (e.g. stirring an empty cup with a spoon)
At 2 years, children can usually
- Simple 2 step instructions (e.g. “give me the shoe and the car”)
- Respond to simple “what” and “where” questions
- Identify several body parts on self and in pictures
- Understand simple location terms (e.g. “in”, “on”)
- 50 to 200 single words
- Produce 2-word utterances (e.g. “no more”, “mummy up”)
- Ask simple questions
- Say “no”
- Use most vowel sounds and a range of early developing consonants
- Refer to self by their name
- Start using early pronouns “mine” and “my”
At 3 years, children can usually:
- More complex 2 step instructions (e.g. “give me the ball and get your shoes”)
- Understand more wh-questions (“what”, “where”, “who”)
- Understand “same” and “different” concepts
- Understand different categories of items (e.g. animals vs. food)
- Recognise basic colours
- 4 to 5 word sentences
- Use a variety of words in their vocabulary
- Ask questions using “what”, “where”, “who”, “why”
- Talk about past events in past tense
- Engage in a conversation with some turn taking
At 4 years, children can usually:
- Most contextual questions
- Wh-questions about a story
- The concept of numbers
- Show awareness of the sounds that are in words
- Longer sentences with connecting words such as “and”, “but” and “because”
- Explain recent past events in more detail
- Ask many questions
- Use more pronouns (e.g. “he”, “she”, “you”, “they”), and negations (e.g. “don’t”, “can’t”)
- Count to 5 and name more colours
At 5 years, children can usually:
- Multi-step instructions of 3 parts (e.g. “put your shoes on, get your bag and stand at the door”)
- Have an awareness of temporal concepts (e.g. “before”, “after”, “soon”, “later”)
- Show interest in the meaning of new words
- Recognise some letters, sounds and numbers
- Longer and more complex sentences with mostly appropriate grammar and word order.
- Other listeners understand all of what they are saying
- Take turns in longer periods of conversation
- Tell short narratives with a basic structure (beginning, middle, end)
- Use verb tenses correctly (“walked”, “went”, “will eat”)
Typical Speech Sound Development
| Age children learn to produce English speech sounds | Speech sounds |
|---|---|
| 2 to 3 years | p, b, m, d, n, h, t, k, g, w, ng, f, y |
| 4 years | l, j, ch, s, v, sh, z |
| 5 years | r, zh, th (voiced) |
| 6 years | th (voiceless) |
References
Speech Pathology Australia. (2022). Communication Milestones. Retrieved from https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au on 26/07/2022. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2022). Milestones. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/ on 26/07/2022.
McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. doi:10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100. Available from: https://ajslp.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2701897
Bowen, C. (1998). Ages and Stages Summary: Language Development 0-5 years. Retrieved from on 26/07/2022