Oregon Scottish Rite Clinics
Helping Young Children Communicate
Since 1980
Resource Center
Children develop communication skills such as attending, listening, understanding and verbal expression as they grow. These learned behaviors occur in stages or sequences. The communication skills listed below are categorized into developmental sequences to serve as a general guide. If you have concerns that your child has not achieved these milestones, you should contact the Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education Program in your area, or call the nearest Oregon Scottish Rite Clinic.
Milestones for understanding and using verbal language:
By 6 months: Child responds to sounds and voices by looking toward the sound source. Child demonstrates vocal play through babbling, cooing and giggling.
By one year: Child responds to name and understands "no" as well as short/simple commands. Child produces a variety of consonant and vowel sounds during babbling; says 5 to 10 meaningful and understandable words.
By two years: Child will point to common objects and pictures when named; understands slightly more complex commands ("put the truck in the box"); points to major body parts; identifies a few action pictures. Child uses specific words to express wants and needs; vocabulary ranges from 150 to 300 words; uses simple 2-3 word phrases (want cookie); 50-60% of speech is understandable.
By three years: Understands increasingly more complex commands; identifies objects and pictures by function (which one do you cut with?); able to listen and appropriately respond to questions; identifies 2-4 colors; understands adjectives and prepositions. Child uses more complex 3-5 word sentences, is able to sequence and accurately describe events in which he/she participated; vocabulary grows to 900 words; 90% of speech is understandable; able to use correct pronouns, simple plurals, and simple forms of verb tenses.
By four years: Child can listen to and comprehend stories; is able to carry out sequences of three commands, identifies 4-7 colors, understands more complex concepts as comparisons and associations. The majority of verbal language at this age is very close to adult levels. Child asks many questions about a variety of subjects, can carry on a conversation, and vocabulary is about 1,500 words.
By five years: Child knows opposites and opposite analogies (ice is cold, etc); can categorize/classify items into appropriate groups, knows time concepts (morning, night, tomorrow). Child uses complete sentences with sentence length from 5 to 13 words. The amount of questions decrease and are more relevant. Child can carry on long involved conversations utilizing appropriate exchange of information.