Speech & Language Milestones:

Measure Your Child's Progress

By 6 Months

  • Reacts to sound & respond to speaker
  • Turns head to a sound
  • Produces a variety of distinguishable sounds
  • Mouths objects
  • Vocalizes when talked to

Between 1 & 2 Years

  • Recognizes name
  • Says two to three words other than "Mama" and "Dada"
  • Imitates familiar words
  • Uses two objects together in play
  • Understands simple instructions
  • Recognizes words and points to objects like a ball, car, shoe, cup, spoon, etc....
  • Participates and initiates simple games like peak-a-boo, pat-a-cake, tickle games, etc....
  • Responds to "no"
  • Waves bye-bye
  • Makes sounds of familiar animals
  • Points to toes, eyes, nose, foot, mouth, etc....
  • Understands words like "more"

Between 2 & 3 Years

  • Identifies most body parts
  • Asks "what's that" and "where's my"
  • Uses combinations of words, at least three words together
  • Has a vocabulary of at least 450 words
  • Uses simple descriptives; "big," "little," "wet," "dry," etc....
  • Understands the use of objects
  • Gets attention of adults; "watch me"
  • Holds up fingers to tell age
  • Combines nouns and verbs
  • Uses "me" instead of name to refer to themselves

Between 3 & 4 Years

  • Can tell a story
  • Has a sentence length of at least five words
  • Has a vocabulary of at least 1,000 words
  • Uses and understands words like "more," "most," "one" and "some"
  • Knows colors
  • Knows categories such as "all the animals" or "all the foods"

Between 4 & 5 Years

  • Uses past tense correctly
  • Uses the concept of "where" and "why"
  • Begins to understand time concepts like "in the morning," "next," and "last night"
  • Asks many questions such as "who," "where," and "why"
  • Uses imaginary conditions such as "I hope..." or "what if..."
  • Knows shapes

Useful Resource Links

Typical Speech & Language Development: Kindergarten -5th Grade Communication Milestones: Early communication warning signs: Why to intervene early: Preschool language-building activities: Birth-6 years speech & language building activities: Feeding & Swallowing Disorders Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Autism Spectrum Disorders: More Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America: