Milestones

* Understands “yesterday”, “dinnertime”, “tonight”, “big-small”

* Understands fast and slow

* Understands object functions

* Understands differences in meanings (stop-go, in-on, big-little)

* Knows his address and some children’s songs e.g. “Twinkle, twinkle little star”

* Follows 2- and 3- part commands

* Begins to follow instructions like “put the doll under the chair” and two step related instructions like “close the book and give it to me”

* Identifies objects by name

* Tells two events in chronological order

* Can tell 3 or 4 events in a story after you’ve read the story to them

* Has a sentence length of 4 – 5 words

* Uses language to express emotion

* Uses nouns and verbs most frequently

* Uses some contractions (e.g. doesn’t, couldn’t), irregular plurals (e.g. men), future tense verbs, and conjunctions (e.g. because, and)

* Consistently uses regular plurals, possessives and simple past tense verbs

* Sentence grammar improves, although some errors still persist

* Appropriately uses is, are, and am in sentences

* Names at least two colours

* Asks many questions e.g. “What is this?” “Where we go?” “Why?”

* Able to respond to “Who?” and “Whose?” questions

* May continue to use echolalia.(Echolalia is when a child responds to a question by repeating the question instead of answering the question).

Warning signs

* Do you find it hard to understand your child’s speech?

Activities to encourage your child’s speech and language

* Talk about how objects are same and different

* Help your child to tell stories using books and pictures

* Let your child play with other children

* Read longer stories to your child

* Pay attention to your child when he’s talking

* Talk about places you’ve been to or will be going to

* Teach your child to distinguish between square and round shapes

* Play games that need objects to be moved up and down, on top and below

* Get him to describe attributes of the toy when he is playing with the toy e.g. red car

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Article Courtesy of Isabel Tan Cjinh Ping, Senior Speech Therapist

Bachelor of Speech Pathology, University of Queensland, Australia (1999)

Public Service Commission Scholarship Awardee 1995