Therapy Tips
29 Milestones for Speech and Hearing Development
May is Better Speech and Hearing Month. What does that mean to you as a parent? If you are having doubts about your child’s speech and language development, wondering if your child is reaching those speech milestones on time, questions are probably swirling in your mind: Do they have enough words in their vocabulary? Do they understand language? Are they attempting to interact with others enough? Here are some of the developmental speech behaviors of young children that you should be watching for:Child (0-12 months)
- Responds to/turns toward a familiar voice
- Shows recognition of name
- Listens to words, begins responding to words
- Entertains self by vocalizing (babbles, coos)
- Babbles at others
- Tries to imitate a single syllable or series of sounds
- Exhibits expressive jargon (gives impression that vocalizations have meaning)
Child (12 months-24 months)
- Follows simple questions or commands (Where’s the ball? Get the ball.)
- Listens to rhymes and songs
- Attempts to follow one-step commands
- Identifies two pictures from name
- Listens to simple stories with pictures
- Speaks first words
- Continues to jabber tunefully to self while at play
- Echoes prominent word or last word spoken
- Uses words instead of gestures; labels nouns and actions; has prepositions, pronouns, adverbs
- Repeats 1-2 digits
Child (24-36 months)
- Attends when name is called
- Can discriminate between different noises
- Understands 300-400 words
- Identifies action pictures
- Understands long and complex sentences
- Can follow many one-step commands
- Understands names and pictures of most common objects and verbs
- Imitates two-word sentences with appropriate intonation
- Has 300-word vocabulary
- Repeats 3-4 syllable sentences
- Talks about action in pictures
- Begins to use past tense, plurals, and pronouns