Check Your Child’s Development

Learning to talk – what can you expect?

if:

• Make vocal sounds e.g. cooing and gurgling
• Start to smile in response to a familiar adult
• Be startled by loud noises
• Enjoy watching a human face more than anything else and can concentrate intently on faces
• Copy facial movements e.g. sticking out tongue
• Cry when I am unhappy / uncomfortable
• Turn towards a familiar voice
• Recognise the difference between happy and sad faces and tones of voice
• Turn towards the smell of a familiar adult

I am not startled by loud noises.

I do not ever engage in eye contact when spoken to.

I do not ever smile back when someone is communicating and smiling at me.

I do not show interest in my parents face when talking to them.

months

• Make a range of vowel and gurgling sounds, especially when an adult is copying me / interacting with me
• Use my sounds to express my feelings – especially when I am excited or happy. My cries will change depending on what I need from you (tired / hungry / uncomfortable)
• Make babbling sounds with a consonant and vowel

e.g. ‘mamamabababa’

• Make sounds back to an adult when we “talk” together
• Look towards the speaker when I hear someone talk

I do not respond to any noises.

months

• Accurately turn towards a familiar sound e.g. keys in the door / food preparation
• Babble in strings of connected but different sounds

e.g. ba-da-ga-da

• Start to understand simple routines, words and activities
• Enjoy simple games like ‘peekaboo’
• Stop and look when I hear my own name

I have not made any babbling or other sounds by 6 months

months

• Use my voice, gesture, eye contact and facial expression to make contact and keep the attention of others
• Make noises and look at you to get your attention
• Look towards very familiar objects / people when I hear the word e.g. “pet’s name”; “hat”; “shoe”; “cup”; “ball”
• Point to objects of interest and can follow an adult’s point – looking in the direction the adult is pointing / looking
• Show you I understand when you say chunks of words like “up you come” by putting my arms up for you to pick me up
• Use babble that will become words e.g. “Mama”; “Dada”
• Really enjoy people games and spending time with familiar people

• Say around 10-20 single words (though these may not be clear)
• Understand key words in phrases e.g. “where’s your nose?” and naming words like “ball”
• Recognise photos of familiar people and objects
• Like being with familiar adults and watch and copy their body language
• Attend to my own choice of activity for a short time
• Use sounds to represent meaning e.g. “moo” for a cow and “choo choo” for train
• Use gestures like waving goodbye (you might see these a short while after someone has said goodbye)
• At 18 months can be understood by familiar listeners 25% of the time

• Ask basic questions like “where drink?”
• Begin to use words for a range of purposes – to tell you something / ask for something
• Use different types of everyday words like nouns (ball / Jake / Granny / banana) and verbs (jump / sleep / splash)
• Begin to put 2 words (or signs) together e.g. “Mummy car”; “more drink”
• Use the following sounds in words: p/b/m/n/w/h
• Understand instructions with 2 key words (or signs)

e.g. “make teddy jump” or “Give the ball to teddy”

• Enjoy pretend play – feeding a doll or teddy / putting toys to bed / talking on a pretend phone
• At 2 years can be understood by familiar listeners 50-75% of the time.

• Regularly use 2 word sentences and some 3 word sentences
• Use question words “what?” and “where?”
• Understand simple concepts such as in/out/on/big/little
• Use the following sounds in words t/d/k/g/ng/v/f but will still substitute easier sounds
• Attend to adult’s choice of activity for approximately 2-3 minutes
• Identify objects by function e.g. “Which one do we sleep in?

I don’t regularly use words to express myself

I don’t follow simple, everyday instructions

I can’t settle and play with activity that I

choose myself even for a very short time

years

• Understand and be able to follow a simple story – understand around 200 – 500 words and most of what an adult says in the ‘here and now’
• Follow instructions with 2 parts e.g. “get your socks and put them in the basket”
• Be able to
• Listen with great enjoyment to stories
• Be understood by people that know me well 75- 100% of the time
• Use grammatical markers like plurals and tenses (even if they are wrong) e.g. “mans” for ‘men’; “foots” for ‘feet’ and “runned” for ‘ran’.
• Be able to have a simple conversation with an adult

– offering information and answering questions at a simple level about something that has happened

• Put 4-5(+) words together to make sentences by the time I am 3
• At 3 years can be understood by familiar listeners 75-100% of the time.

I don’t show any interest in communicating

I am not using sentences with 2 words

I seem to have stopped making progress with my talking

I use gesture to get what I want rather than using the words

My parents can’t understand what I say

I rely on being shown what to do rather than

on understanding the words people say.

• Ask lots of questions, especially “what?” “who?” and “why?”
• Use language to pretend
• Listen to stories with increasing attention and can remember important parts of the story
• Join in familiar songs, rhymes and stories when there is a repeated event, action or phrase
• Hear sounds in my environment and in words
• Start using the pronoun words he/she/they
• Play with other children rather than just alongside them

I don’t use sentences with 3 words or more

I don’t understand simple commands

Close relatives can’t understand me most of the time

I struggle to turn ideas into sentences

My words are often jumbled, and my ideas

are difficult to follow

• Use language to structure my thinking and simple stories, sequencing simple activities e.g. “first we eat breakfast and then go to school”
• Understand and talk about simple things that have already happened and things that will happen in the future
• Take turns in conversations
• Not need to stop what I am doing to listen to instructions
• Use language to compare, using words like ‘bigger’ and ‘biggest’
• Start to enjoy very simple jokes (though my jokes will most likely not make much sense)
• Have mostly clear speech
• Enjoy playing with other children