Child Speech Development Timeline

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  • Three months

    Child begins to respond vocally to people (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 60).

  • Eight months

    Child begins to gesture (i.e. reaching for the face of the person talking) (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 60).

  • One year

    Children speak their first words, and words begin to fill intentions that used to be signaled by gesturing (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 60).

  • 16 months

    Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) do not have single words (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 80).

  • Two years

    Children speak at least 50 words, can link two words together, such as, “no cup”, speaks clearly enough that parents can understand some things (Mayo Clinic, 2013, Age 2 sec.).

  • Three years

    Child may speak between 250 and 500 words, speaks in three- to four-word utterances, can use pronouns correctly, say his or her name, speaks clearly enough that strangers can understand approximately 75 percent of the utterances (Mayo Clinic, 2013, Age 3 sec.).

  • Four years

    Child starts change talking style to fit partner in the conversation (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 60), starts to answer simple inquiries, and can use sentences with at least four words (Mayo Clinic, 2013, Age 4 sec.).

  • Five years

    By five years of age, children have 90 percent of language form learned, may understand rhyming and the future tense; children can state their full names (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 60; Mayo Clinic, 2013, Age 5 sec.)

  • Six years

    One begins to see the visual side of communication of reading and writing in children (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 60).

  • Seven years

    Some children are diagnosed with Learning Disabilities (LD) and have difficulties in the classroom (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 74).

  • Nine years

    Children’s performance on distinguishing vowels sounds such as “heed”, “hid”, “head”, etc. is relatively good, but not as good as adults on the same test by a margin of 71.7 percent (Jacewicz & Fox, 2014).

  • Adolescence

    Teens are capable of participating in telling narratives and being competent in conversations as well as knowing multiple meanings of given words and figurative language (Owens, Metz, & Farinella, 2015, p. 60).