Milestones
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Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
Birth to Three Months
- Decrease or stop activity when approched by sound
- Quiet in response to friendly or familiar voice
- Purposely attend to strange voices
- Appear to be listening to speaker
- Look directly at speaker’s face in response to speech
- Frequently watch speaker’s mouth and lips
- Look at speaker and smile response to voice
- Respond occasionally to sounds or speech by vocalizing
- Produce a "special" cry to signify hunger or discomfort
- Vocalize occasionally as a sign of pleasure
- Laugh or vocalize pleasure during play with an adult
- Vocalize attitude
- Cry frequently
- Occasionally vocalize or make sounds other than crying
- Produce vowel-like sounds similar to "E", "A", "O" and "U"
- Repeat the same syllable while babbling and cooing
- Often vocalize (ah, uh, coos, gurgles, sighs, grunts, squeals, blows bubbles) sounds other than crying
- Vocalize two distinct syllables of same or different sounds
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
4 to 6 Months
- Turn head deliberately toward the source of the voice
- Look about in search of speaker
- Localize sources of voices with accuracy
- Usually stop babbling in response to vocal stimulation
- Recognize and respond to own name
- Usually stop crying when someone talks
- Initiate vocalizing and babbling directly at others
- Regularly repeat series of the same sounds, especially when alone
- May produce consonants such as "K", "G" or "H"
- Play at making sounds and noises while alone or with others
- Laugh out loud
- Repeat combinations of two or more diffferent sounds when babbling (a-ga, a-ba, a-da)
- Consonants produced may include "B, M, D, N, R, W"
- Vocalize 3 different vowel sounds
- Only imitate behavior that the child can see or hear himself produce (vocalizations and manual gestures, but not facial expression)
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
6 to 9 Months
- Frequently appear to listen to whole conversations
- Respond to familiar known words by changing facial expression, vocalizing, or imitating the word
- Respond with vocalizations at least half of the time when called by name
- Appear to recofnize words like "Mommy", "Daddy"
- Stop or withdraw in response to, "No", half of the time
- Appear to recognize names of family members
- Attend to music or singing
- Respond with appropriate gestures to such words as "Come", "Up", "Bye-Bye"
- Stop activity when name is called
- Play speech games (peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake)
- Occasionally vocalize along with familiar songs or music without using true words
- Use some appropriate gestures such as shaking head for "No", turning head away or making faces
- Repeat two syllables sounds such as da-da, ma-ma, ba-ba, not necessarily as a meaningful word
- Use 4 or more well-defined syllables such as erg, da, ma, mu, goo, la
- Occasionally vocalize in sentence-laenght utterances without using true words
- Often imitate sounds and numbers of syllables heard in speech of others
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
9 to 12 Months
- Intense of prolonged attention and response to speech
- Give toys often to a parent upon request
- Look at objects that mother looks at
- Understand simple commands or requests
- Follow simple commands
- Understand simple questions
- Use some exclamations like, "Oh-Oh"
- Use gestures (reaching, posturing, visual fixation) to make wants known
- Make appropriate verbal responses to some requests (say bye-bye)
- Tease, warn, exclaim humor (giggle as wait for a turn in a tickle routine)
- A particular word represents a specific item ("Bankie", refers to a child’s blanket only)
- Often use jargon (short sentence-like utterances of four or more syllables without true words)
- Vocalize to toys and people throughout the day using long verbal patterns
- Frequently say one or more distinct, meaningful words (baby, da-da, name of pet or toy)
- Use 3 or more words with some consistency
- Initiate speech-gestures games (pat-a-cake, peek-a-boo)
- Make recognizable imitation of words child already knows
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
12 to 18 Months
- Respond to requested information (point to nose in response to "Where is your nose?"
- Act to indicate that the other person’s utterance was received (turn head and smile after person talks)
- Show shoes or other clothing when asked
- Seem to understand the psychological feeling and shades of meaning of most speakers
- Point to two familiar objects upon request
- Recognize and identify many objects or pictures of objects when they are named
- Recognize clearly names of various parts of the body
- Demonstrate understanding by carrying out verbal request to select and bring some familiar object from another room
- Attempt to obtain desired objects by using voice in conjunction with pointing and gesturing
- Sometimes use single words to communicate requests, possession, action, and identity
- Command another to carry out an action (put adult’s had on jar while looking at adult)
- Command another to cease an undesired action (push hand away when an undesired food is offered)
- Direct another’s attention to an object (hold up toy car toward adult and smile while loooking at adult)
- Communicate salutation and offer conversational rituals (hi, bye, please, thank you) and waves hand for "Bye" as mom leaves
- Consistently use true words to communicate requests, possession, action, and identity
- Call listener to the movement of some object or actions of others (laugh and look at adult while adult makes faces)
- Jabber, imitating conversational sounds of adults, not necessarily meaningful words
- Use some true words in jargon utterances
- Frequently use consonants in vocalizations like, "T, D, W, N, H"
- Communication accomplished by using gestures, vocalizations, and true words
- Use consistently 7 or more true words
- Evidence a continual, but gradual increase in speaking vocabulary
- Vocalize as imitative response to new words
- Imitate some new words
- Occasionally repeat words overheard in conversation
- Jabber by imitating conversational sounds of adults but not necessarily meaningful words
- Imitate words already in vocabulary
- Try to imitate facial expression
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
18 to 24 Months
- Point to several parts of the body and various items of clothing upon request
- Demonstrate understanding by appropriate responses to action words ("Come here")
- Comprehend action words
- Follow simple one-step commands
- Comprehend simple questions and carry out two consecutive directions with ball or other toy
- Recognize and identify almost all common objects and pictures when they are named
- Follow series of 2 or 3 very simple, but related commands (feed doll, burp doll, and put doll to sleep)
- Recognize new words daily at an ever-increasing rate
- Begin to use words more than gestures to express wants and needs
- Spontaneously waves bye-bye as a sense of termination
- Attempt to tell about experiences by using a comination of jargon and some true words
- Communicate about objects and events that are not immediately present
- Refer to self by using own name
- A word represents various kinds of objects ("Chair" means several types of chairs)
- Spontaneously use 10-20 words
- Occasionally put two words denoting two concepts into a sentence or phrase ("Daddy gone, baby eat, ball go")
- Use more and more new words each week
- Occasionally use three word sentences ("There it is")
- Begin to use some pronouns, but make mistakes in syntax
- Produce up to 21 different consonant and vowel sounds
- Single words or phrases convey complex relational meanings ("All gone" marks disappearance of an object; "Up" implies to be picked up; "Mine" is associated with possession)
- Will produce up to 25 different phonemes
- Begin to use present progressive -ing (Mommy driving)
- Say, "No!" to adult request
- Imitate environmental sounds (animals, motors) during play
- Imitate some two and three word sentences
- Repeat words
- Jargon and echolalia are present
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
24 to 30 Months
- Understand negatives (no, not, can’t, don’t)
- Understand question forms of what and where
- Understand simple possessive forms (Daddy’s shirt)
- Understand complex sentences ("When we get to the store, I’ll buy you ice cream")
- Point to smaller parts of the body when asked (chin, elbow)
- Recognize and identify general family names, categories (grandma, uncle)
- Understand common verbs
- Understand common adjectives
- Recognize the names and pictures of most common objects
- Understand word association through functional association ("What do you drink with?")
- Understand size differences "Little doll.", "Large dog")
- Communicate about the actions of others
- Answer simple questions appropriately
- Ask increasing numbers of questions (where, who)
- Formulate negative judgements ("Spoon, not a fork")
- Ask for help with personal needs
- Name at least one color correctly
- Refer to self by using pronoun (I, me, my) rather than proper name
- Answer simple "Who", "What", "Where" questions about familiar people or things
- Add information to the prior utterance of a communication partner
- Usually speak in two or three word sentences
- Often uses personal pronouns (I, you, he, it, me) correctly
- Ask what and where questions
- Use two-word phrase
- Use nouns to label objects
- Use two different pronouns
- Use two-term semantic relations that code relational meaning (noun + attribute, agent + action, agent + object, action + locative)
- Use regular plurals (cats, dogs, balls)
- Use morphemes: "in" and "on"
- Correctly produce phonemes: -S, D, -D, -K, F, -F, -NG, Y
- Say, "No!" to adult request
- Concept, "Mine" to denote possessiveness
- Recite portions of nursery rhymes
- Repeat adult phrases
- Jargon and echolalia are almost gone
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
30 to 36 Months
- Understand all common verbs
- Understand most common adjectives
- Show interest in explanations of "why" things are and "how" they function
- Carry out three simple commands given in one long utterance
- Understand prepositions: under, in front, behind
- Understand concept of "one"
- Tell gender when asked
- May label and talk about own drawings when asked
- Give first and last name when asked
- Regularly relate experience from recent past
- Use several verb forms correctly in relating what is going on in action pictures
- Make negative statement (can’t open it)
- Use noun phrase with article (The dog barks)
- Begin to use contractions (can’t, we’ll, won’t)
- Use some plural forms correctly in speech
- Use two word phrases
- Begin to use auxiliary verbs (I hafta sleep, Me gonna play)
- Use the present progressive adding "ing" to verbs
- Use the past tense
- Use prepositions (on, in, under, behind)
- Use simple possessives (on, in, under, behind)
- Use simple possessives (doggie’s tail, daddy’s shirt)
- Use four to six-word phrases
- Use verb forms correctly (he walks, she walked, I walked)
- Correctly produce phonemes: -T, -R, -B, W
- Use contractible auxiliary (Mommy’s eating an apple)
- Spontaneous imitation decreases
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
36 to 48 Months
- Follow 3 step commands given in a complex sentence
- Comprehend congruent and incongruent tasks ("Can you sit down and stand up at the same time?")
- Understand temporal terms: before and after
- Understand propositions in temporal expressions ("In a week")
- Understand concept of "more"
- Refer more frequently to the activities of others
- Refer more frequently to objects and events removed in time
- Changes tone of voice and sentence structure to listener’s level of understanding
- Use some alternative forms that take context differences into account (speaker/listener pronoun distinctions, articles and ellipsis based on shared information)
- Elaborate and expand on other’s utternaces
- Ask questions about persons and things
- Verbalize opposite analogies
- Complete simple analogies ("We eat with a spoon, we sleep on a _____")
- Average sentence length is four words
- Use negative phrase than no ("Don’t do that")
- Name four colors
- Use irregular plurals (sheep, leaves)
- Use propositions in phrases ("The box is behind the sofa.")
- Use possessive pronouns (his, hers, theirs)
- Correctly produced phonemes: S, -L, -G, ER
- Begin to use the articles "the" and "a"
- Respond correctly to questions (who, what, where, when)
- Adverbs emerging (softly)
- Use "S" to make plural nouns
- Ask questions (who, why, and how)
- Use verb forms correctly
- Use adjectives (big, small, loud, good)
- Use future tense (going to)
- Correctly produced phonemes: -F, L-, BL-, R-, BR-, TR-, -V
- Repeat sentences of five to six syllables
- Repeat sentences of seven to eight syllables
- Repeat at least one nursery rhyme and can sing a song
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
48 to 60 Months
- Understand passive sentences ("The ball was kicked by the boy.")
- Understand past and future tenses of the verb "to be"
- Understand irregular plural forms (Sheep, leaves)
- Abstract / logical thinking becoming more advanced (understand opposites and simple analogies)
- Ask meaning of abstract words
- Use compound sentences by connecting two sentences with "and" or "or".
- Use contractions (can’t, won’t, we’ll)
- Use complete and correct sentences
- Discriminates between real and nonsense words
- Occasionally uses 6 to 8 word sentences
- Average sentence length is 5 words.
- Use "would" and "could"
- Use transitive verbs (hope, think, know, tell, guess) in simple sentences ("I think I can do it.")
- Use irregular past tense of verbs (ran, left)
- Repeat sentences of 9-10 syllables
Age Range
Receptive Language
Pragmatics
Verbal
Imitation
60 + Months
- Answer "why" questions with "because" response
- Use dependent clause (the cow jumped over the moon)
- Use regular comparative forms (biggest, longest)
- Some error with irregular morphems, reflexive pronouns and comparative adjectives
- Overgeneralizations present, apply regular syntactic rules when not appropriate (runned, sitted)
- Use at least two different forms of the future tense