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Prenatal Development: Week 16
Around 16 weeks of pregnancy, it's likely that the fetus' ears have begun to develop and the fetus' ears will be well-structured enough that he/she will begin to detect some limited noises. -
Prenatal Development: Week 24
By week 24, babies have shown to turn their heads in response to voices and noises. The fetus now recognizes his/her mother's voice. -
Birth-3 months
Hearing and Understanding:
Startles to loud sounds, quiets or smiles when spoken to, seems to recognize your voice and quiets if crying, increases or decreases sucking behavior in response to sound Talking:
Makes pleasure sounds (cooing, gooing), cries differently for different needs, smiles when sees you -
4-6 months
Hearing and understanding:
Moves eyes in direction of sounds, responds to changes in tone of your voice, notices toys that make sounds, pays attention to music Talking:
Babbling sounds more speech-like with many different sounds, including p, b and m, chuckles and laughs, vocalizes excitement and displeasure, makes gurgling sounds when left alone and when playing with you -
7 months-1 year
Hearing & Understanding:
Enjoys games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake, turns and looks in direction of sounds, listens when spoken to, recognizes words for common items like "cup", "shoe", "book", or "juice," begins to respond to requests (e.g. "Come here" or "Want more?") -
1-2 years
Hearing and Understanding:
Points to a few body parts when asked, follows simple commands and understands simple questions, listens to simple stories, songs, and rhyme, points to pictures in a book when named. Talking:
Says more words every month, uses some one- or two- word questions ("Where kitty?" "Go bye-bye?" "What's that?"), puts two words together ("more cookie," "no juice," "mommy book"), uses many different consonant sounds at the beginning of words. -
2-3 years
Hearing & Understanding: Understands differences in meaning, follows two requests ("Get the book and put it on the table"), listens to and enjoys hearing stories for longer periods of time
Talking: Has a word for almost everything, uses two- or three- words to talk about and ask for things, uses k, g, f, t, d, and n sounds, speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time, often asks for or directs attention to objects by naming them, asks why, may stutter on words or sounds -
3-4 years
Hearing and Understanding: hears you when you call from another room, understands words for some colors, understands words for some shapes, like circle and square, understands words for family
Talking: talks about activities at school or at friends' homes, talks about what happened during the day, uses about 4 sentences at a time, people understand child's speech, answers simple "who?", "what?", and "where?" questions, asks when and how questions. -
4-5 years
Hearing & Understanding: understands words for order, like first, next, and last, understands words for time, like yesterday, today, and tomorrow, follows longer directions, follows classroom directions
Talking: says all speech sounds in words. May make mistakes on sounds that are harder to say, like l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, th, responds to "What did you say," talks without repeating sounds or words most of the time, names letters and numbers, uses sentences that have more than 1 action word -
6 years
Children understand that single words might have different meanings and start to rely more on the context of a word to find a particular meaning, child will understand that he can make new words by joining two other words, child will also begin using longer words as she gets to know that the beginnings and endings of words change their meanings, child will also start to understand that words don’t always need an ‘s’ to become plurals. -
7-8 years
Children will typically have gained most of their grammar knowledge and use it in conversations, full and detailed stories become the norm, mastery of basic reading by 3rd grade. -
9-11 years
Word definitions emphasize synonyms and categorical relations, grasps double meanings of words, as reflected in comprehension of metaphors and humor, understanding of complex grammatical constructions improves, adapts messages to the needs of listeners in complex communicative situations, conversational strategies become more refined. -
12 years
Children will begin to reason, think abstractly, and apply logic. They have completed the concrete operations and have entered the formal operations stage.