Playing • Enjoying nursery rhymes and actions songs. • Having a conversation with toys in their own baby language. • Playing alongside, but not with, other children. • Playing with a toy for at least five minutes.
At 3 years Understanding • Understanding some size, colour and position words, such as “in” and “on”. • Answering ‘who, ‘why’ and ‘where’ questions. • Expressing emotions.
• Saying these sounds in words p b m w n t d k g. • Sometimes saying f and s in words.
• Listening to a 20 minute story. • Starting make-believe play such as going to the shops. • Pretending to be someone else in play. • Using words to get attention such as ‘watch me’. • Able to express emotion.
Please remember this leaflet gives you guidelines. All children are different. If you are worried about your child’s speech and language development, please contact us.
Talking • Talking in a joined up way – you should be able to understand most of the words. • Talking about past and present experiences. • Beginning to ask ‘what’ and ‘who’ questions.
Enquiries to: Speech and Language Therapy Dewsbury Health Centre Wellington Road Dewsbury WF13 1HN Tel: 01924 351546
• Counting three objects, pointing to each one. • Singing songs and telling stories.
Reference: tq1288 Publication date: Oct 2006
Speech sounds • Making themselves understood to people who know them well.
aw
Playing
© Kirklees Primary Care Trust www.kirklees-pct.nhs.uk Adapted from a leaflet by Janet Isaacs, Fiona Peel and Alison Paxton.
baba
bye bye
h hellob bababab ye
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hello ah Speech and Language Development Guidelines for parents
This leaflet is for parents/guardians of children up to 3 years old. It is designed to help you know what children should be doing at different ages so that they learn to talk.
At 1 year
At 6 months
• Enjoying games like ‘round and round the garden’.
• Playing imaginatively with toys such as making tea, dressing dolly, playing with toy cars.
• Beginning to watch people’s faces when they speak.
• Talking to you and to themselves in their own ‘baby language’.
• Using social words like ‘hello’ and ‘byebye’.
• Crying with pain or hunger in different ways.
• Using gestures, like pointing and waving.
• Understanding and copying facial expressions.
• Making noises to get attention.
• Using exclamations like ‘oh!’, ‘ah!’ ‘aw!’.
At 2 years
• Making sounds when people talk to them. • Smiling at familiar people • Responding to the word ‘no’. • Beginning to play with sounds for the fun of it, such as ‘bababa’.
At 9 months • Enjoying listening to nursery rhymes and music. • Looking at pictures or simple books with you for a minute or so. • Showing some understanding of very familiar words or phrases like: “bye bye”, “come here”, “no”, “ta”. • Understanding the names of some familiar objects and people. • Shouting to attract your attention. • Babbling with strings of different sounds. • Copying sounds that you make and the tune in your voice.
• Listening when spoken to. • Looking at your face when you call their name.
• Trying to say their first words such as ‘mama’.
At 18 months
Playing • Pretending to do real-life activities, like sweeping floors, cooking, driving and talking on the phone.
Understanding • Readily understanding most everyday words and actions. • Understanding simple requests.
Understanding
• Listening to simple stories with pictures.
• Pointing to pictures in a book when asked ‘show me’.
Talking
• Pointing to parts of the body. • Understanding simple commands, like ‘give me the teddy’.
• Using at least 50 words such as the names of objects, actions and people. • Wanting to learn new words.
Talking
• Starting to use questions such as ‘what’s that?’
• Using at least 10 words.
• Taking turns in a conversation.
• Copying new words.
• Joining 2 words together eg "more milk”.
• Using gesture along with sounds and words. • Getting attention by pointing and/or vocalising.
Speech sounds • Using a variety of sounds eg m p b w n t d, in words. • Trying to say lots of words but not always correctly.