Children’s language development
Children’s language development is partly innate, meaning it is inbuilt in nature for children to acquire language; however the environment and the interactions children have at an early age heavily impact on language development. The first 12 months of a babies life, they will develop many of the foundations that underpin communication and language development. Although the first year is very important in building these skills, a child will continue to develop and refine language skills throughout their childhood, into adulthood.
Language falls into two main categories, receptive and expressive language. Receptive language is understanding what is being said, written or signed; whereas expressive language is the spoken, written or signed language to communicate with others.. Children will learn receptive language before expressive language, and will be unable to use words and sentences in context until they understand the meaning behind the words. Children as young as 6 months old are beginning to develop receptive language skills and will begin to communicate using non verbal cues and sounds. As children’s language development increases children will begin to combine single words to create sentences, follow complex instructions and use their vocabulary to interact with the world.
Children’s language development supports your child’s ability to communicate, and express and understand feelings. It also supports thinking and problem-solving, and developing and maintaining relationships. Learning to understand, use and enjoy language is the critical first step in literacy, and the basis for learning to read and write.
In this table information represents, on average, the age by which most monolingual speaking children will accomplish the listed milestones. All children’s language development is individual to the child and just because a child has not accomplished one skill within an age range does not mean the child has a disorder.
| Age of Child | Typical Language Development |
| 6 months | *Vocalization with intonation *Responds to their own name Responds to voices (without visual cues) by turning head Responds appropriately to different tones of voice |
| 12 months | *Uses single words with meaning (this may be a fragment of a word) *Understands simple instructions, perhaps with visual cues *Experiments with different tones of voice *Is aware of the social value of speech |
| 18 months | *Has a vocabulary of approximately 5-20 words *Vocabulary made up mostly of nouns *May begin to repeat a word or phrase over and over *Language may still be jargon, yet emotion is displayed *Is able to follow simple instructions |
| 24 months | *Can name a number of familiar objects *Is able to use at least two prepositions, such as ‘in’, ‘on’ or ‘under’ *Beginning to combine two words *Approximately two thirds of child’s language should be intelligible *Vocabulary of approximately 150-300 words *Able to use two pronouns correctly, although ‘me’ and ‘I’ are often confused *’My’ and ‘mine’ are beginning to emerge *Responds to such instructions as “point to your eyes” “where is your nose” |
| 36 months | *Use pronouns ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘me’ correctly *Is using some plurals and past tenses *Knows at least three prepositions; usually ‘in’, ‘on’ and ‘under’ *Knows main parts of body and should be able to point to them if not able to use the words *Confidently using three word sentences *Vocabulary of 900-1000 words *About 90% of what child says should be intelligible *Understands most simple questions *Relates experiences and able to talk about them *Able to answer questions such as “what must you do when you are sleepy, hungry, cool, or thirsty?” *Should be able to give name, age and gender on request |
| 48 months | *Knows names of familiar animals *Can use or demonstrate at least four prepositions *Names common objects in books or in the environment *Knows the name of one or more colours *Can usually repeat words containg up to four syllables *Can use most vowels, diphthongs and the following consonants; p, b, m, w, n *Ability to take part in imaginative play or make-believe *Will often comentate whilst playing. *Understands concepts such as ‘longer’, ‘bigger’ when a contrast is presented *Readily follows instructions without visual cues, or the object in question present *Much repetition of words, phrases, syllables, and even sounds |
| 60 months | *Can use many descriptive words spontaneously (both adjectives and adverbs) *Knows common opposites: big-little, hard-soft, heave-light, etc *Able to count to ten *Speech should be completely intelligible *Should have all vowels and the following consonants; m,p,b,h,w,k,g,t,d,n,ng,y *Should be able to repeat sentences (containing up to 9 words) *Should be able to define common objects in terms of use (hat, shoe, chair) *Should be able to follow three commands given without interruptions *Should understand and use simple concepts of time such as ‘morning’, ‘afternoon’, ‘night’, ‘later’, ‘after’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘yesterday’ and ‘soon’ *Should be using long sentences and some complex sentences *Speech on the whole, should be grammatically correct |
| 6 years | *In addition to the above consonants these should be mastered: f, v, sh, zh, th, *Speech should be completely intelligible *Should be able to tell a story connected to a picture, seeing relationships between objects and experiences |
| 7 years | *Should have mastered the consonants ‘s-z’, ‘r’, voiceless ‘th’, ‘ch’, ‘wh’, and the soft ‘g’ as in ‘George’ *Should handle opposite analogies easily: girl-boy, man-woman, flies-swims, blunt-sharp short-long, sweet-sour, etc *Understands such terms as: alike, different, beginning, end, etc *Should be able to do simple reading and to write or print many words |
| 8 years | *Can relate involved accounts of events, many of which occurred at some time in the past *Complex and compound sentences should be used easily *Should be few lapses in grammatical constrictions such as tense, pronouns, plurals *All speech sounds, including consonant blends should be established *Should be reading with considerable ease and now writing simple compositions *Social amenities should be present in speech in appropriate situations *Control of rate, pitch, and volume are generally well and appropriately established *Can carry on conversation at rather adult level *Follows fairly complex directions with little repetition *Has well developed time and number concepts |