As a parent, we are always wondering “what is normal”…”is my child on target”, especially when it comes to their communication skills. There are certain benchmarks that professional speech therapists look for at certain ages of a child. These benchmarks are outlined below.
At twelve months old we expect a child to be following one part commands like “go get your shoes”, “where’s your book”. When they’re talking, we expect them to use constant vowel figures, a lot of babbling, jargon, and they may begin to have they’re first words around they’re first birthday or around the time they begin to walk.
Children at 12 months will begin to say mostly p’s, b’s, and m’s because those are the sounds that you can see on the mouth most easily.
When children are 2 years old, they often have vocabularies of 200-500 words, and will understand many more than that. Benchmarks that we look for are children are using two word combinations at that time, pretty easily and have at least a 50 word vocabulary.
If they’re not using 50 words by that age, then we want to know why, it could be that they’re not exposed to enough language or stimulation in the home, it could be that they have an ear infection or hearing loss that has not been identified.
Children who are 3 and 4 years old, will begin to be using t, d, k, and g and some s’s and sometimes l, and will have mastered those lip sounds p, b, and m’s. A three year old is expected to use about 800-1500 words in they’re vocabulary and we should be able to understand about 75% of what they say.
Children who are three and four years old will begin to identify some basic adjectives or opposites like hard and soft, rough and smooth, and they’ll be able to follow two part commands and understand some prepositional phrases like “in front” or “in back”.
When children are about 4 and 5 years old, we expect to understand close to 100% of what they say. One of the most important things that children do at this age is they begin to classify objects or people, by color, form or use. This is one of the most important things, because this is how we organize information as we become adults.
When parents play with their children, it’s important that they support their speech and language development, especially when children are younger and needing that kind of information.
Often, parents ask too many questions or give too many commands when the child is playing…”let’s make it do that, put that one over there”…is this one red. When you ask those kinds of questions, you’re only going to get single word responses. So what’s more helpful is to talk about what the child is doing.
We need to talk and we need to read to our children. Children develop at different stages, sometimes there little bodies will be really concentrating on growing physically and next month their little bodies will be really concentrating on growing communicatively.
Typically, in the general population, 10 to 12% will have speech and language difficulties.
Children probably have the most difficulty with r’s and l’s and the reason for that is those are very difficult sounds to make because of the very small movements that the tongue makes in order to produce those sounds.
R’s and l’s are difficult to remediate. Sometimes children aren’t ready, growthwise, to produce those finer movements. So we have to help them do that or wait a little bit until they have some maturation time.
During speech pathology, children get the assistance they need to know where to put there tongues, give them exercises, teach them little fine tricks to know what to do, so they can learn how to say all their sounds correctly.
If your child doesn’t seem to be on target, we recommend that you have them come to a speech/language pathologist for evaluation.
A lot of preschool children are at risk for reading difficulties and so some of the things that you might watch out for in that area are: general developmental delay, a lack of interest in books, an inability to name letters, not being able to identify all the sounds in a word or what’s the beginning and end sound, difficulty with rhyming.
Peer interaction for kids is just really important. Certainly, parents are the primary teachers, and provide the background and support for children’s communication development, but at some time, we have to go out into the real world and communicate with our peers, the same is true for children.
So giving them opportunity whether it’s at a play group, preschool, Sunday school, in the park, to be able to participate with like-aged peers. It’s going to support their language and gives them an opportunity to practice what they’ve been doing in the home.
At twelve months old we expect a child to be following one part commands like “go get your shoes”, “where’s your book”. When they’re talking, we expect them to use constant vowel figures, a lot of babbling, jargon, and they may begin to have they’re first words around they’re first birthday or around the time they begin to walk.
Children at 12 months will begin to say mostly p’s, b’s, and m’s because those are the sounds that you can see on the mouth most easily.
When children are 2 years old, they often have vocabularies of 200-500 words, and will understand many more than that. Benchmarks that we look for are children are using two word combinations at that time, pretty easily and have at least a 50 word vocabulary.
If they’re not using 50 words by that age, then we want to know why, it could be that they’re not exposed to enough language or stimulation in the home, it could be that they have an ear infection or hearing loss that has not been identified.
Children who are 3 and 4 years old, will begin to be using t, d, k, and g and some s’s and sometimes l, and will have mastered those lip sounds p, b, and m’s. A three year old is expected to use about 800-1500 words in they’re vocabulary and we should be able to understand about 75% of what they say.
Children who are three and four years old will begin to identify some basic adjectives or opposites like hard and soft, rough and smooth, and they’ll be able to follow two part commands and understand some prepositional phrases like “in front” or “in back”.
When children are about 4 and 5 years old, we expect to understand close to 100% of what they say. One of the most important things that children do at this age is they begin to classify objects or people, by color, form or use. This is one of the most important things, because this is how we organize information as we become adults.
When parents play with their children, it’s important that they support their speech and language development, especially when children are younger and needing that kind of information.
Often, parents ask too many questions or give too many commands when the child is playing…”let’s make it do that, put that one over there”…is this one red. When you ask those kinds of questions, you’re only going to get single word responses. So what’s more helpful is to talk about what the child is doing.
We need to talk and we need to read to our children. Children develop at different stages, sometimes there little bodies will be really concentrating on growing physically and next month their little bodies will be really concentrating on growing communicatively.
Typically, in the general population, 10 to 12% will have speech and language difficulties.
Children probably have the most difficulty with r’s and l’s and the reason for that is those are very difficult sounds to make because of the very small movements that the tongue makes in order to produce those sounds.
R’s and l’s are difficult to remediate. Sometimes children aren’t ready, growthwise, to produce those finer movements. So we have to help them do that or wait a little bit until they have some maturation time.
During speech pathology, children get the assistance they need to know where to put there tongues, give them exercises, teach them little fine tricks to know what to do, so they can learn how to say all their sounds correctly.
If your child doesn’t seem to be on target, we recommend that you have them come to a speech/language pathologist for evaluation.
A lot of preschool children are at risk for reading difficulties and so some of the things that you might watch out for in that area are: general developmental delay, a lack of interest in books, an inability to name letters, not being able to identify all the sounds in a word or what’s the beginning and end sound, difficulty with rhyming.
Peer interaction for kids is just really important. Certainly, parents are the primary teachers, and provide the background and support for children’s communication development, but at some time, we have to go out into the real world and communicate with our peers, the same is true for children.
So giving them opportunity whether it’s at a play group, preschool, Sunday school, in the park, to be able to participate with like-aged peers. It’s going to support their language and gives them an opportunity to practice what they’ve been doing in the home.
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