Check off the communication skills that your child is demonstrating on a consistent basis.
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By 6 months your child should:
o Turn towards sounds
o Make different cries for different needs, e.g. tired, hungry
o Smile and laugh in response to your smiles and laughs
o Watch your face when you talk
o Make different noises, e.g. coo, gurgle
By 9 months your child should:
o Respond to his/her name
o Understand “no”
o Get what he/she wants by sound and gesture, e.g. reaching to be picked up
o Play social games like ‘peek-a-boo’
o Babble and repeat sound, e.g. “babababa”
o Enjoy being around people
By 12 months your child should:
o Follow simple directions, e.g. sit down
o Use at least three words
o Babble using lots of different sounds
o Shake head for “no”
o Draws your attention to an object by using gestures or sound and looking at you, e.g. looks up to the sky and points to a bird and then looks back at you
By 18 months your child should:
o Understand simple directions, e.g. “put your hat on“ or “go get the doll”
o Point to several body parts
o Understand concepts like “in” or “off”
o Engage in pretend play, e.g. giving a dolla drink
o Use at least 20 words
o Start to put two words together, e.g. “Mommy bye bye”
o Make at least 4 different consonant sounds – b, n, d, g, w, h
o Respond to yes/no and “wh” questions, e.g. “Do you want a drink?”, “Where’s the truck?”
By 24 months your child should:
o Use at least 100 words
o Consistently put two or more words together, e.g. “bubble go up”
o Use at least two pronouns, e.g. “mine”, “you”
o Enjoy playing with other children and start to imitate them
o Be understood 50% of the time by unfamiliar people
o Follow two-step directions, e.g. “go get your car and put in the toy box”
By 30 months your child should:
o Use more than 350 words
o Say their name
o Use some adult grammar, e.g. “two dogs”, “baby’s crying”
o Consistently use 3-4 words in a sentence
o Use action words (eat, jump) and pronouns (you, mine)
o Understand concepts such as big/little, and prepositions such as in, off, under
o Have complex play sequences, e.g. put blocks in a truck, drive it, then dump them
o Produce 2-3 syllable words, e.g. ba-na-na
o Take short turns with other children
By 36 months your child should:
o Use sentence of 4-6 words with adult-like grammar
o Be understood 75% of the time by everyone
o Follow long, complex directions
o Ask “wh” questions eg “what”, “where”
o Use adjectives for colour and size
o Use “in” and “on” when asked “where” questions
If your child does not meet all the communication, speech and language milestones for their age,
we recommend that you complete a referral submission to SmartStart Hub at Lansdowne Children’s Centre for an assessment. We can help connect you with available services supports and resources in our community.