Vocabulary Milestones Reference
12 months - 2 to 6 words
15 months - 10 words
18 months - 50 words
24 months - 300 words
30 months - 500 words
36 months - 1,000 words
42 months - 1,200 words
48 months - 1,600 words
54 months - 1,900 words
60 months - 2,500 words
6 years - 7,000 words
12 years - 50,000 words
Pragmatics aka Social Language Skills
A few examples below of each time frame…
Birth-6 months:
•Startles to loud sounds
•Varies responses to different family members
•Stops crying when spoken to
6-12 months:
•Responds to “no”
•Tries to “talk” to listener
•Copies simple actions of others
1-2 years:
•Engages in parallel play
•Exhibits verbal turn-taking
•Talks to self during play
2-3 years:
•Watches other children and briefly joins in their play
•Requests permission for items or activities
•Makes conversational repairs when listener does not understand
FAQs
One of the most common questions I am asked as a private practitioner is if I take insurance?
I am private pay and do not take insurance at this time but I can provide a superbill for the initial evaluation and following treatment sessions, if requested. You then would submit the superbill to your insurance provider as an out-of-network claim. I try my best to help families get reimbursed whenever possible.
Phoneme Development
According to research there poses some variability in overall criteria based on studies completed yet general agreement yields a few overall conclusions about the acquisition of individual sounds (phonemes):
•Nasals “m, n, ng,” Stops “p, b, t, d, k, g,” and Glides “w, y” are typically acquired earliest.
•Up next include Fricatives “f, v, s, z, sh, zh,” Affricate “ch” and Liquids “l, r.”
•Previous studies also note voiced/voiceless “th” and “zh” were generally the latest phonemes to be acquired.
Acquisition of Pronouns
An approximation for the acquisition of pronouns - Research indicates that children use most subjective/objective pronouns by age 3 and possessive pronouns by age 5.
Approximate Age Pronouns
12 – 26 months I & it
27 – 30 months my, me, mine, you
31 – 34 months your, she, he, yours, we
35 – 40 months they, us, hers, his, them, her, him
41 – 46 months its, our, myself, ours, their, theirs
47+ months herself, himself, ourselves, yourselves
Expanding Toddler Vocabulary
Here are some tips to boost your toddlers vocabulary:
Read together.
Talk with versus at your child.
Sing songs.
Encourage them to use their “words” in lieu of frequent pointing/gesturing.
Model language for them.
Expand on their language, i.e., “ball” to “yes, that’s a small red ball.”
Explore new items and environments together.
PROMPT Training
What is PROMPT?
•PROMPT stands for Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Target. PROMPT is “a tactile-kinesthetic approach that uses touch cues to a patient’s articulators (jaw, lips, tongue, vocal folds) to manually guide them through a targeted word, phrase or sentence.”
•PROMPT was developed to treat children with motor speech disorders including apraxia, speech/language language disorders. It can be used for children ages 6 months and older.
•At Little Sunflowers Speech and Language we are committed to and prioritize continuing education and plan to be PROMPT trained by the end of this year.
Speech Intelligibility Expectations
Did you know that children’s speech intelligibility can be classified into the following age groups? Is your child speaking unclearly to familiar and unfamiliar listeners? Quite frankly, it could be developmentally appropriate depending on their chronological age. Check out my chart below for corresponding age to intelligibility levels.
19 – 24 months 25-50% intelligibility
2 – 3 years 50-75% intelligibility
4 – 5 years 75-90% intelligibility
5+ years 90-100% intelligibility
If you’re interested in discussing your child’s speech please fill out the contact form and we’ll set up a free consultation.
We’re Open!
We are happy to announce that Little Sunflowers Speech & Language is available to begin seeing clients! We are a private practice specializing in speech/language delays, social skills development, expressive/receptive language disorders, and articulation disorders. If you think your child may benefit from speech and language therapy please fill out our contact form for a free phone consultation. Referrals are welcome!
