Speech Development Checklist

 

Common Signs and Indicators

The following Speech Development Checklist will help you determine whether your child needs Language and Speech therapy:
Speech Therapy - Child Success Center - Santa Monica, California

12 Month Speech Development

By 12 months, does your child:

• Listen when spoken to
• Understand and respond to own name
• Respond to simple requests
• Recognize words for common items like “ball” and “cup”
• Imitate some speech sounds and intonation patterns
• Use sound approximations
• Begin to change babbling to jargon
• Have an expressive vocabulary of 1 to 3 words

12-18 Month Speech Development

By 12-18 months, does your child:

• Point to a few body parts when asked
• Follow simple commands
• Respond with words or gestures to a question, such as “What’s that?” or “Where’s your shoe?”
• Imitate individual words
• Have an expressive vocabulary of 3 to 20 or more words
• Produce more words every month

19-24 Month Speech Development

By 19-24 months, does your child:

• Listen to simple stories, songs and rhymes
• Point to pictures in a book when named
• Know 5 body parts
• Use words more frequently than jargon
• Accurately name a few familiar objects
• Have an expressive vocabulary of 50-100 or more words
• Ask and answer “What’s that?” questions
• Sound approximately 25-50% intelligible to strangers

2-3 Year Old Speech Development

By 2-3 years, does your child:

Speech Therapy - Child Success Center - Santa Monica, California

• Follow 2-part commands
• Identify several body parts
• Understand most things said to him or her
• Have an expressive vocabulary of 50-250 or more words
• Request items by name
• Request permission for items or activities
• Defend own possessions
• Begin to control behavior verbally rather than physically
• Ask 1- to 2-word questions
• Use 2- to 4-word phrases
• Exhibit multiple grammatical errors
• Produce speech that is 50-75% intelligible
• Maintain topic over several conversational turns

3-4 Year Old Speech Development

By 3-4 years, does your child:

• Follow 2- and 3-part commands
• Use language to express emotion
• Use 4 to 5 words in sentences
• Tell two events in chronological order
• Engage in long conversations
• Answer wh- questions (e.g., who, what, where)
• Make eye contact with peers and adults
• Produce speech that is approximately 80% intelligible to strangers

4-5 Year Old Speech Development

By 4-5 years, does your child:

Speech Therapy - Speech Development - Child Success Center - Santa Monica, California

 

• Use sentences of 4 to 8 words
• Accurately tell about experiences at school, at friends’ homes, etc.
• Listen to short stories and answer simple questions about them
• Tell stories that stick to topic
• Use language to resolve disputes with peers
• Use words to invite others to play
• Use adult-like grammar most of the time
• Produce speech that is usually intelligible to strangers even though some articulation errors may persist

5-6 Year Old Speech Development

By 5-6 years, does your child:

• Follow instructions given to a group
• Use sentence length of 4 to 6 words
• Exchange information and asks questions
• Use sentences with details
• Accurately relay a story
• Communicate easily with adults and other children
• Use appropriate grammar in most cases

School Age Speech Development

School-age – does your child:

Speech Therapy - Speech Development - Child Success Center - Santa Monica, California

 

• Use increasingly more complex descriptions
• Engage in conversation
• Grasp details or main ideas in stories
• Understand and use figurative expressions
• Organize sentences and stories
• Draw conclusions and inferences
• Paraphrase and rephrase with ease
• Have the ability to reason
• Look at things from another’s perspective
• Retrieve/access words easily

>Download Developmental Checklist

>What Should My Child Be Saying? – view articulation chart

Child Success Center
2023 S. Westgate Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Call 310-899-9597 to access our “warm” line.
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