Birth- 5 Milestones

Is my child on track developmentally? With so many areas of growth occurring in the first few years of life, it can get overwhelming trying to keep track of it all. I try to keep it simple with the families I work with.

0-2 Months:

Vegetative sounds (crys, burps, sneezes)

2-4 Months:

Laughing, Cooing & Gooing (vowels, consonant-vowel, vowel-consonant)

4-6 months:

Vocal play, Exploration (squeals, growls, yells, raspberries)

6-8 Months:

Canonical, reduplicated babbling (CVCV combinations)

8-12 Months:

Variegated Babbling (different CV combinations appear), jargon babble with intonation begins

12 Months:

Produces first word

Understands approximately 50 words

Responds to no

18 Months:

Produces around 50 words

Two word combinations begin (mainly noun + verb)

Omits final consonants

Follows simple commands

Identifies up to 3 body parts

24 Months:

CVC words combinations and two-syllable words appear

Speech is 50% intelligible

Produces approximately 250 words

Requests information, Answers questions

Begins to use pronouns

30 Months:

Grammatical markers appear (-ing, plural /s/, in/on)

Understanding and use of basic questions (what, who, what doing, where going)

‘Please’ used for polite requests

Uses approximately 450-500 words

36 Months:

Use and understanding of “why”

Understanding and use of basic spatial concepts (in, on, under, over)

Speech is 75% intelligible

Follows two-step commands

Understands one and all

Uses around 1,000 words

42 Months:

Early complex sentences appear

Irregular past tense, articles (a/the), possessive (‘s) acquired

Indirect requests emerge (can you, would you)

48 Months:

Understanding and use of “when” and “how”

Understanding and use of basic size vocabulary (big, small)

Use of conjunctions (and, because)

Understands object functions

Uses 4-5 words in sentences

60 Months:

Use of conjunctions when, so, if

Regular past tense, third person /s/, “to be” verbs acquired

Speech is 100% intelligible with some errors on /l/, /r/, /th/, /s/

Of course, there’s many more communication milestones children hit during their first five years of life. If you’re concerned with your child’s language development consult your pediatrician and discuss a speech-language evaluation. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions!

Talk soon, Kim