What should your child be saying at each age?
Written by Ibtissam Mustaq for Everyday Heroes Kids www.ehkidshealth.com
Ibtisssam is a Speech Language Pathologist & Clinic Director at Andalusia Speech Therapy — https://www.andalusiaspeech.com/
There are so many milestones to watch for as your children develop! There are motor milestones, feeding milestones, play milestones, many others and that may feel overwhelming. At Andalusia Speech Therapy, our Speech Language Pathologists created a Youtube video for families to watch to help them easily see and listen to speech and language milestones between the ages of 1–5. Click here to watch the video.
If you want to read about the milestones, here they are broken down by ages 1, 2, and 3. All this information is evidence-based but it’s important to remember that there is a range within each age. We encourage you to take these milestones as general guidelines and speak to a Speech Language Pathologist if you have any questions.
< 1 years old:
Before your child turns 1, you can start looking for some signs of language development. You’ll want to see that your child startles with loud sounds. If not, you may be want to let your doctor know to check for any hearing concerns. From a speech perspective, your baby will start out cooing, and then move on to some basic babbling (mama, baba, papa). Close to the 1 year mark, you want to hear some variegated babbling, mababa, pamama. This is your infant starting to experiment with the sound they can make with their mouth and is an important milestone in developing speech.
When your child turns 1, they are just starting to understand that all those sounds that come out of peoples’ mouths have meaning! While they are starting to understanding some of those words, their muscle coordination for speech isn’t ready yet to say a whole lot. So a lot of what you’ll be watching for is non verbal communication at this stage. Some milestones include:
· Turning when you call their name
· Gestures like waving hello, shaking their head for no
· Can follow some one-step instructions without clues (‘come here’ without putting your hand out)
· Babbling and using nonsense speech
· Uses the consonants p, b, m, d in their babbling
· Tries to sing along to songs
· Tries to say their first words (animal or vehicle sounds count too!)
At 18 months, we want to see your child saying between 10–15 words. These can include animal sounds (mooo, woof woof) or vehicle sounds (beep beep, choo choo), and won’t always be very clear or easy to understand, but they count!. Then you should see a language explosion as they get closer to 2 years old and their one-word vocabulary should expand to 50–70 words!
Some signs that it’s time to see a Speech Language Pathologist: If your child is 18 months and not yet speaking or understanding simple commands.
Here is when the talking really revs up! All that practice is going to kick into high gear as your child starts communicating more and their personality comes out. Here are some milestones to look out for:
· Can say ‘no’ (that’s a fun one!)
· Can follow 2-step instructions (i.e. ‘take the shoe and give it to daddy)
· Can make a choice between two options (i.e. ‘orange or apple?’)
· Understands 250–300 words
· Can say 70- 100 words
· Starting to put together two words (i.e. ball up)
· Has speech sounds p, b, d, m, n, h
· Learning sounds k, t, g, ing
· Speech is about 50% clear
Some signs that it’s time to see a Speech Language Pathologist: If your child is 2 years old and not putting two words together yet, or doesn’t understand a lot of 1-step instructions and some 2-step instructions.
Chatty toddler time! At this age, your child should be beyond just expressing their basic needs and wants, but commenting, asking questions, and starting to share stories about things they see and hear. Here are some milestone for your 3 year old:
· Understands prepositions like in, on, or under
· Names several colours
· Uses regular plurals (i.e. cats)
· Understands time concept (yesterday/today/tomorrow)
· Overgeneralizes past tense (i.e. I falled)
· Tells stories
· Uses negatives more frequently (i.e. none)
· Asks questions usin wh- words (get those answers ready!)
· Uses pronouns like he, she, we, our
· Working on same sounds as 2 year old with the addition of f and y
· Speech is overall almost 75% clear
Some signs that it’s time to see a Speech Language Pathologist: If you understand less than 50% of your child’s speech or they are using only 1–2 words together to communicate.
Tips and Strategies
What is the best way to develop and reach these speech and language milestones? Play with your child and model the appropriate language for their age. The more you interact with your child, the more they have opportunities to hear and practice language themselves! Model language that is at their level, so if they 1 years old, you can model one-word phrases to them based on things they are interacting with. If they are 2 years old, you may be modeling 2 and 3 word phrases for them to pick up on. You can use people games (peek a boo, tag), toys, books, and songs to help you get there!
About Ibtissam Mustaq and Andalusia Speech Therapy
Ibtissam is a second-career Speech Language Pathologist. While working in the field of humanitarian issues, she wanted to offer a more specific skill set and went back to school at the University of Ottawa for her Master’s in Speech Language Pathology (MHSc) in French. Ibtissam is trilingual as she speaks English, French and Bengali. She works at the Hospital for Sick Children where she helps children with cochlear implants or hearing aids gain language skills, and is the founder of Andalusia Speech Therapy.
Andalusia Speech Therapy is both a speech therapy clinic and a social enterprise. With four clinics in Ontario (Toronto, St. Catharines and Sudbury), and online therapy accessible from anywhere in the world, Andalusia’s Speech Language Pathologists provide a wide reach for both children and adults with communication needs. As the clinics core value is to help people communicate freely, regardless of age, geographical location or economic status, they often encounter issues of social justice and giving people a voice. Andalusia Speech Therapy hopes to become a platform for advocacy and be a loud voice for all of those you don’t have one, while helping them developing their voice at the same time.
Being able to talk to others to create friendships and relationships, speaking up clearly for yourself and your freedoms, reading for pleasure or for work, all of these important life experiences can be impaired with a communication disorder.
