Developmental Milestones

By 6 months of age, your child should be able to:

  • Vocalize with intonation
  • Respond to voices by turning head
  • Recognize friendly vs. angry tones of voice
  • Begin to babble
  • Produce a variety of different sounds
  • Bring both hands together
  • Grasps a rattle
  • Work to get a toy out of reach
  • Rake with fingers an object and pick it up
  • Bear some weight on legs when held upright
  • Sit without support
  • Roll over one way

By 12 months of age, your child should be able to:

  • Use one or more words with meaning
  • Understand simple directions with cues
  • Use 1-2 word questions (“where kitty?”)
  • Point to pictures in books when named
  • Clap hands or wave
  • Pick up a tiny object with any part of thumb and finger
  • Drink from a cup independently
  • Walk holding onto furniture
  • Stand alone momentarily
  • Bear some weight on legs when held upright
  • Sit without support

By 18 months of age, your child should be able to:

  • Demonstrate a vocabulary of 5-20 words; mostly nouns
  • Use a lot of jargon with emotional content
  • Follow simple commands
  • Stack 3-4 blocks
  • Place rings on a cone
  • Turn single pages in a book
  • Roll a ball
  • Walk backwards

Speech Intelligibility to an unfamiliar listener:

18 months – 25% intelligible
24 months – 50% intelligible

By 2 years of age, your child should be able to:

  • Name familiar objects
  • Combine 2 words, especially noun-verb combinations
  • Have a vocabulary of 150-300 words
  • Use simple pronouns, such as I, me, you, my, and mine
  • Understand differences in meaning (stop vs. go, big vs. little)
  • Follow 2 step directions (Get the toy and give it to me)
  • Use words more frequently than gestures to communicate
  • Build tower of 6 blocks
  • Pretend to push a train made out of three blocks after watching an adult do it
  • String 1-4 large beads
  • One hand starts to be dominant
  • Hold crayon with whole hand
  • Imitate an adult making circular strokes or dots
  • Copy horizontal and vertical lines
  • Use spoon well
  • Turn a doorknob
  • Walk and run on full feet
  • Pull toys with strings
  • Climb on furniture and get back down
  • One hand starts to be dominant
  • Climb stairs holding on with two feet on each stair
  • Assist in dressing
  • Open doors

By 3 years of age, your child should be able to:

  • Use some plurals and past tense
  • Know at least three prepositions, such as in, on, under
  • Knows simple body parts
  • Use 3 word sentences
  • Demonstrate a vocabulary of 900-1 000 words
  • Understand most simple, concrete questions
  • Relate experiences in a logical manner
  • Answer reasoning questions, such as “What would you do if you were cold?”
  • Give gender, name, age
  • Snip with scissors
  • Complete 5-6 piece puzzle
  • Hold a crayon with three fingers
  • Copy circles
  • Draw a person with a head
  • Use a fork and spoon properly
  • Jump in place with both feet
  • Kick a stationary ball
  • Ride a tricycle
  • Stand on one foot for 2 seconds
  • Swing on a swing when in motion
  • Alternate feet while going up stairs
  • Put on some clothing
  • Wash and dry hands

Speech Intelligibility to an unfamiliar listener:

80% intelligible

Sounds to be mastered by this age:

By 4 years of age, your child should be able to:

  • Name objects in pictures
  • Knows one or more colors
  • Understand ‘over’ and ‘under’
  • Participate in make-believe
  • Understand contrasting concepts, such as longer, large
  • Follow commands without cues
  • Answer questions about short stories
  • Build tower with 10 blocks
  • String small beads
  • Hold writing utensils with three fingers
  • Copy square
  • Draw person with head, feet and body
  • Dress and undress self independently
  • Demonstrate clear dominance in right-handed children
  • Hop on one foot 1-3 times
  • Play catch with a large ball
  • Have good control of a tricycle

Speech Intelligibility to an unfamiliar listener:

100% intelligible

Sounds to be mastered by this age:

By 5 years of age, your child should be able to:

  • Use descriptive words and understand simple time concepts, such as morning, night, day, later
  • Repeat sentences up to 9 words
  • Define common objects in terms of use
  • Follow three commands given without interruption
  • Use long sentences, including some complex and compound sentences
  • Demonstrate overall appropriate grammar
  • Build tower of 12 blocks
  • Build 3 steps out of 6 blocks
  • Draw angled lines and triangles
  • Draw person with head, body, legs and face
  • Color inside lines
  • Cut on straight line
  • Hold a knife in dominant hand
  • Button clothing
  • Walk in a straight line
  • Climb steps holding onto an object
  • Hop on each foot 3 times
  • Stand on one foot for 8-10 seconds
  • Ride a bicycle with training wheels
  • Swing by himself
  • Bounce and catch a tennis ball
  • Walk on tiptoes

Sounds to be mastered by this age:

By 6 years of age, your child should be able to:

  • Stand on one foot with eyes closed for 3 seconds
  • Walk on line in heel-toe fashion
  • Skip
  • Ride a bike without training wheels
  • Jump rope

Sounds to be mastered by this age:

By 7 years of age, your child should be able to:

Sounds to be mastered by this age:

The above developmental milestones lists are compiled from the following sources:

Murkoff, H, .Eisenberg, A. ,and Hathaway, S. BSN. What to Expect The First Year. New York: Worman Publishing, 2003

Wholefamily.com. Schapiro, Ziva OTR. 05 December 2006. 01 June 2007.

http://www.wholefamily.com/aboutyourkids/child/normal/physical_development.html


Schraeder, Heather M., MS, CCC-SLP.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. How Does Your Child Hear and Talk? The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. 01 June 2007.

http://www.asha.org