Speech/Language Development milestones

Children vary quite considerably with regard to the rate at which they reach the various speech and language milestones. Therefore, these milestones are not rigidly applied.

By age 1 yr

• Recognises name
• Understands simple instructions if supported by gesture
• Recognises words as symbols for objects: Car - points to garage, cat - meows
• Says 2-3 words besides "mama" and "dada"
• Tries to imitate familiar words
• Takes turns in conversation, even if this is just babbling

Between 1-2yrs

• Understands "no"
• Understands 100-500 words
• Gives a toy when asked
• Brings object from another room when asked
• Uses up to 50 words, including names
• Combines two words such as "daddy bye-bye"
• Makes the "sounds" of familiar animals
• Uses words such as "more" to make wants known

Between 2-3yrs

• Identifies body parts
• Understands simple where, who and what questions
• Understands simple time concepts: "last night", "tomorrow"
• Requires prompts to listen to adults when they are speaking to them e.g. “(name) listen”
• Asks "what's that?" And "where's my?"
• Uses 300-400 words but can understand more
• Uses short sentences like "me want more" or "no want"
• Gives first name, holds up fingers to tell age
• Combines nouns and verbs "mummy go"
• Refers to self as "me" rather than by name
• Names common pictures and things
• Matches 3-4 colours, knows big and little
• Able to be understood by a familiar listener most of the time

Between 3-4yrs

• Can tell a simple story
• Understands “why” questions
• Understands "yesterday," "summer", "lunchtime", "tonight", "little-big"
• Begins to obey requests like "put the block under the chair"
• Usually needs to stop an activity to pay attention to a request- can’t listen and play at the same time
• Has a sentence length of 4-5 words
• Has a vocabulary of nearly 1000 words
• Names at least one colour
• Knows his or her last name, name of street on which he/she lives and several nursery rhymes
• Able to be understood by an unfamiliar listener most of the time despite immature speech sounds

Between 4-5yrs

• Says most sounds correctly though may still have difficulties with ‘l, s, sh, ch, z and j’ and often unable to use ‘v, r’ and ‘th’.
• Has sentence length of 4-5 words
• Uses past and future tense
• Has a vocabulary of nearly 1500 words
• Points to colours red, blue, yellow and green
• Identifies triangles, circles and squares
• Understands "In the morning" , "next", "lunchtime"
• Can speak of imaginary conditions such as "I hope"
• Asks many questions, asks "who?" And "why?"

Between five and six

• Has a sentence length of 5-6 words
• Has a wide vocabulary and understands around 13,000 words
• All speech sounds correct except ‘v, r and th’ which continue to develop up to age 8
• Defines objects by their use (you eat with a fork) and can tell what objects are made of
• Knows spatial relations like "on top", "behind", "far" and "near"
• Knows their own address
• Knows common opposites like "big/little"
• Understands "same" and "different"
• Asks questions for information and uses language to negotiate, discuss feelings and give opinions
• Distinguished left and right hand in self
• Uses full grammatical sentences with occasional misuse of unfamiliar words