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Speech and Language Development Milestones

Posted on May 4, 2020

development milestones

Most of your child’s speech and language development occurs in her/his first few years! Here are some guidelines on what to expect for your child’s early speech development.

Around age one, your child should:

  • Recognize their name
  • Say 2-3 different words
  • Understand a simple direction (i.e. “Wave bye-bye!”)
  • Point to objects
  • Imitate familiar words or sounds like “uh-oh” or “mama”

Between ages one – two years, your child should:

  • Use at least 10-20 different words
  • Understand what “no” means
  • Point to simple body parts when named (eyes, nose, etc.)
  • Begin putting two or more words together when talking (i.e. “More cookies!”)
  • Produce the sounds “b, d, h, m, n, p” in the beginning of words
  • Begin to put sounds on the ends of words (saying “cat” instead of “ca”)

Between ages two – three years, your child should:

  • Begin asking simple questions (i.e. “Where’s daddy?”)
  • Know all common body parts
  • Have a vocabulary of 450 words
  • Uses nouns and verbs in phrases (i.e. “eat pizza”)
  • Produce the sounds “f, g, k, t, w”

Between ages three – four, your child should:

  • Use four or more words in a sentence
  • Be able to tell a story
  • Have a vocabulary of 1000 words
  • Can follow directions such as “Put your doll in the toy box.”
  • Be able to tell you their first and last name
  • Produce “s” in words

*The following speech sounds can sometimes develop later and should be produced correctly by the ages listed:

  • “l” and “r”: between 3-6 years old
  • “ch, “sh”, “j”, “v”, “th”: between 4-7 years old

These are just an overview of some of the speech and language milestones expected at a certain age. If you have any concerns regarding your child’s speech and language development, please contact our office to schedule an evaluation at 704-523-8027.

For more speech-language resources, visit our Resources For Families page. For more tips and tools, visit CSHC’s YouTube channel.


Blog written by Kelly Broady. Kelly is a Speech-Language Pathologist at Charlotte Speech and Hearing Center.

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