Childhood development is complex. Between speech and language development, and the variability between children, it’s not always easy to tell if your child’s development is considered “typical.” If you’re worried that your child’s speech development may be atypical, here is a tool for you to use. These are the developmental milestones in speech that average children meet by certain ages.
1. Between 1 and 2 years, typical development includes:
Hearing and Understanding
- Follows simple 1-step directions using in/on or phrases like “roll the ball”
- Listens to stories, songs, rhymes for longer periods of time
- Points to 1-5 body parts on command and recognizes objects (i.e. points to pictures in a book when named)
- Points to pictures in books when you name them
- Around 1.5 years of age, a child understands about 200 words
- Responds to -what questions and yes/no questions by shaking head
Talking
- Uses p, b, m, h, w in words
- Around 1-year-old, using one-word to communicate a variety of meanings (i.e. “car” may mean look at that car, I want my car, where is the car)
- By 2 years old they should be putting 2 words together and will start to use “and” to form a sentence (i.e. hi mom, more juice, doggy bark etc.)
- Will ask what, who, where questions such as “What that?”
- Their vocabulary consists primarily of nouns and verbs
- Will use over-extensions (i.e. all small furry animals are dogs)
- Asks for “more”
- Verbalizes immediate experiences (i.e. water cold)
- Refers to self with pronoun and name (i.e. me Emma)
- Engages in pretend play by around 2 years of age (using objects to represent things not present in play i.e. can use a banana to pretend to talk on a phone)
- Overall, during this phase of development, children are using words to signal communicative intent in a variety of ways: practicing, protesting (i.e. no), greeting (i.e. hi _____), calling/addressing (i.e. Mommy), requesting action (i.e. says ball to get the ball), requesting an answer (cow?), labeling (i.e. points out and names body parts on a doll), repeating/imitating (i.e. overhears a word and repeats it back), answering (i.e. when an adult asks a question, the child responds/names it)
- Socially, Around 1-year-old, engaging with others via joint reference, where the child can focus their attention to an event or object as directed by another person (begins through eye contact in looking at the object(s) and later moves to pointing or naming objects to direct others attention to focus on)
You may want to see a speech-pathologist if you have concerns about your child meeting any of the above milestones and is not following simple directions, listening to stories and songs, using more words to communicate, using communicative intent, engaging in joint referencing and pretend play.
