Is Your Child Behind In Their Language Skills? Understanding Developmental Milestones

No two children grow and develop exactly the same way or at the same pace. However, many children acquire the milestone skills they need to develop language along a similar timeline.

Under 6 Months: Cooing!

Cooing, what some would consider the most adorable part of language development, are the sounds your baby makes that consist of only vowels. By 6 months, your baby should be cooing and making vocalizations in response to being talked to. You should also be able to distinguish whether your baby is communicating a happy or a sad feeling by the way they sound. That is to say, your baby will express positive and negative emotions differently.

6 to 12 Months: Babbling

After cooing for a while, your baby will start to throw some consonants into the mix. They will repeat sounds like "ba-ba-ba-ba" or "ma-ma-da-da-da" without much intention or meaning behind them. However, your baby will likely have said their first word by the time they are around 1. Children in this age will also communicate nonverbally through gestures and try to imitate the sounds they hear you say. They can also understand you when you tell them "no" (even if they don't want to listen!).

12 to 18 Months

As your baby becomes a toddler, their language skills continue developing. You should notice your child attempting to imitate some of the simple words they hear you say, and they should have a vocabulary of around 4 to 6 words. At this age, they should also be able to answer simple questions nonverbally, a sign of language comprehension.

18 Months - 2 Years

By this age you toddler's vocabulary should expand to around 50 words, though they likely won't have the pronunciation down perfectly. They will also start putting two words together to expressed basic sentences like "mama fix," and to use pronouns like "my".

2 to 3 Years

Your toddler's speech will start to become more accurate and their sentences should expand to 3 words. Still, their speech may not be as understandable to strangers as it is to you. They should begin using past tense verbs, plurals, and descriptive words for emotions and spatial concepts.

3 to 4 Years

Your child has come a long way! At this age, their speech should improve such that stranger can understand at least most of what they're saying. They should have a wide range of sounds they can produce, though they may still struggle with the more difficult ones like "ch" and "th". By this point language communication should be enjoyable for them! They will learn how to talk about their feelings and ideas, answer simple questions, repeat sentences, identify colors, and use verbs ending in "-ing".

About

Disclaimers:

1. This is a student-driven psychology project. The information provided is for general information purposes only. The information mentioned is not intended to be used as professional or medical advice. The information is not a substitute, nor does it replace, professional medical and psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified professional should you need specific advice.

2. The images featured in this post were retrieved from the internet and are completely free to modify, share, and use commercially.

3. I do not own any of the ideas contained in this post. This content was compiled by me but taken from the following resource, linked and referenced as follows:

https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=age-appropriate-speech-and-language-milestones-90-P02170

Reference:

Stanford Children's Health. (n.d.). Age-appropriate speech and language milestones. Stanford Childrens. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=age-appropriate-speech-and-language-milestones-90-P02170