Age

Language Milestones

3 – 6 months old:

• Uses vocal sounds to express likes and dislikes.
• Moves eyes to direction of sound.
• Makes gurgling noises while playing.
• Babbles repetitive sounds such as “pa”, “ba”.
• Responds to changes in tone of voice.
• Enjoys listening to music.
• Begins to babble different syllables.

12 -14 months:

• Shouts at you when your child doesn’t like what you are doing.
• Makes tuneful sounds when hearing familiar music.
• Begins to learn the names of body part.
• Listens when other children talk to each other.
• Understands many more words than can say.

• Can follow a broader range of ”instructions; “Let go of the toy”

15 -18 months

• Consistently uses six or seven words
• Understanding extends to many more words.
• Combines language and gestures to express needs.
• Enjoys songs and nursery rhymes.
• May join in with some sounds and actions.

19 – 21 months:

• Has extended vocabulary to dozens of words, mostly nouns that describe a general class of objects such as “car” for all vehicles or “house” for all buildings.
• Child can put words together to form two-word phrases.
• Tries to join in songs.
• Spots familiar characters and objects in picture books and tries to name them.
• Your Toddler begins to develop an understanding of speech is about social contact and communicating basic needs.

22 – 24 months:

• Can accurately identify objects.
• Experiment with different word combinations.
• Tackles most sounds but often mixes up or mispronounces certain consonants such as “c” or “s”.
• Vocabulary is at least 200 words, often combined in short sentences.

2 years old:

• Can follow 2 instructions using on, under or behind (“stand behind the door”).
• Respond to “what?” and “where?” questions.
• Enjoy listening to stories.
• Ask questions and listens to answers.
• Starts using pronouns such as he, you, she etc.
• Begin to use adverbs and adjectives (e.g. fast, high, big, soft, etc.).
• Point to common objects when they are named.
• Name objects based on their description.
• Knows most parts of the body.
• Recount events that happened throughout the day.
• String known words together to form short phrases.

3 years old:

• Ask questions beginning with, “Who, What and Where”.
• Able to say name, surname and how old they are.
• Use regular plurals and regular past tense correctly (may be a few errors while talking).
• Begins to understand vocabulary indicating time, e.g. tomorrow, yesterday, later.
• Begins to understand and correctly use adjectives depicting size, e.g. small, smaller and smallest.
• Understand cause and effect relationships, e.g. if you drop a ball then it will bounce.

4 years old

• They often ask the “when?” “how?” and “why?” questions.
• Understand and use comparatives correctly (e.g. fast, faster, fastest).
• Re-tell a story.
• Repeats words with more syllables.
• Enjoys pretend play.
• Use words such as “should”, “shall”, “will”, “might” and “can”.
• Able to carry out and understand between two and three instructions.
• Names familiar objects/animals.
• Pay attention to a reasonably long story, not always interpreting all the facts correct though.
• Knows names of shapes and colours.
• They use “because” and “so” correctly.

5 years old:

• Pronunciation of words are clear.
• Uses many descriptive words while talking.
• Enjoys telling stories.
• Able to say own age.
• Have a basic understanding of time (morning, afternoon, night).
• Easily understood while talking.
• Begins to use more polite words while talking.
• Uses language to tease and tell jokes.
• Understand and sometimes tell a story, using sequence of events (e.g. “Firstly Mommy bought some eggs, then she fried them in a pan and finally we ate them”).

• Overall speech should be grammatically correct