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Pre-Language Development
This is a language development period in which infants will learn to communicate by using gestures, facial expressions, eye contact and a few spoken words. -
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By age 3 months
By the time an infant in three months old, it should be able to respond vocally, even if it cannot properly form full words or morphemes yet. -
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By 8 months of age
At this age, the baby should begin communicating through gestures, such as pointing, raising arms, or making eye contact. -
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By the first year
By the first year of a child’s life, he/she should be able to start speaking actual words that are associated with physical gestures. -
Toddler Language
Toddlers begin speaking full words that are comprehensible, and later begin to develop a word order when trying to form sentences. -
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By 18 months of age
At this age, toddlers should have a lexicon of about fifty words, and then they will combine words by using word-order rules that they have observed. -
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By 2 years of age
By two years, a toddler’s lexicon should have increased a lot more to a range of 150-300 words, and he/she will be able to form larger word combinations when speaking. -
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By 3 years of age
At this point, a toddler should begin to form complete sentences. -
Preschool Language
This is the main time in which children are beginning to be tested for speaking, listening and overall comprehension skills. -
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By 4 years old
At this age, children begin to change their style of speech to match who they are conversing with. -
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By 5 years old
At five years old, a child should have developed approximately 90% of language form. -
School-Age & Adolescence Language
It is at this point that a child should have the necessary language skills to be able to effectively communicate with conversation partners. -
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By 6 years of age
By age six, children begin other communication methods through reading and writing. -
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Ages 7 years through adolescence
By now, children should be able to have complete conversations with others, including being able to tell narratives, understand and use words with multiple meanings, metaphorical language, and gender style.
