Speech milestones

Since we are highlighting a speech therapist/practitioner this week, we thought we'd share these speech milestones. 

Speech Milestones 

By age 1

·      Recognizes name 

·      Says 2-3 words besides "mama" and "dada" 

·      Imitates familiar words

·      Understands simple directions

·      Recognizes words as symbols for objects - dog and points to dog and might say woof woof

Between 1 and 2 

·      Understands “no”

·      Uses 10 – 20 words, including names

·      Combines two words like “daddy bye bye”

·      Waves bye bye and plays pat-a-cake

·      Makes the sounds of familiar animals

·      Gives a toy when asked

·      Uses words such as “more” to make wants known

·      Points to his/her toes, eyes, nose, belly button

·      Brings objects from another room when asked

 

Between 2 and 3

 

·      Identifies body parts

·      Carries on a conversation with self and toys

·      Uses 2 word negative phrases such as “no want”

·      Asks “what’s that” and “where’s my”

·      Forms some plurals by adding “s” – book, books

·      Matches 3-4 colors, knows big and little

·      Uses short sentences like “me want more”

·      Names common pictures and things

·      Answers “where” questions

·      Solves problems by talking instead of crying or hitting

·      Talks to other children

·      May say “no” when they mean “yes”

·      Likes to hear the same story over and over

·      Tries to get an adults attention “watch me”

·      Refers to self as “me” rather than by name.

·      Understands simple time concepts, “last night”, yesterday

·      Combines nouns and verbs “daddy go”

·      Gives first name, holds up fingers for how old

·      Has a vocabulary of 450 words

 

Between 3 and 4

·      Knows his last name, name of street and nursery rhymes

·      Begins to obey requests like “put the toy in the basket”

·      Understands  yesterday, dinnertime, bath time, tonight, little/big

·      Names at least 1 color

·      Has a vocabulary of at least 1000 words

·      Has a sentence length of 4-5 words

·      Can tell a story

 

Between 4 and 5

·      Asks many questions – who and why

·      Can speak in “as if” or imaginary conditions – “I hope”

·      Understands “next time”, “in the morning”

·      Identifies triangles, squares, circles

·      Points to colors red, blue, yellow and green

·      Able to use the past tense correctly

·      Has a sentence length of 4-5 words

·      Has a vocabulary of about 1500 words

 

Between 5 and 6

·      Uses all types of sentences – “let’s go to the store after the playground”

·      Can distinguish his/her left and right hand

·      Asks questions for information

·      Can count ten objects

·      Understands “same” and “different”

·      Knows common opposites “big”, “little”

·      Can identify money – penny, nickel, dime

·      Knows his address

·      Knows spatial relationships “on top of”, “behind”

·      Defines objects by their use – “spoon for soup”

·      Has a vocabulary of 2000 words

·      Has a sentence length of 5-6 words