Speech Milestones That Show A Preschool Child’s Language Development Is On Track
As parents watch their beloved offspring grow from a baby into a pre-school child, there are many developments they look for, and within the realm of speech pathology, we know that speech and language are two of the most important. The ability of a child to understand the language they hear and then articulate it as they learn to speak is essential to a child’s development.
Thankfully, speech pathology has produced a roadmap for a child’s speech and language development, which provides parents with milestones based on their child’s age. The age that many speech pathologists consider critical is between 3 and 5, and this period of a child’s life is called their pre-school years.
As such, speech pathology has identified where a child’s language and speech skills should have reached throughout the 3 years or so they are considered pre-school children. One huge caveat and one which speech therapists often discuss with parents is that every child will develop in different ways and at different rates. It is therefore not wise to think that any child’s speech development will occur in a straight line.
The point we wish to stress is that whilst speech pathology has provided milestones, they are not a replica of how every child will develop, and that is why speech pathologists may consider a child’s language development to be on track, even if parents have concerns that their child is behind. As for those speech pathology milestones for pre-school children, we have outlined them below for both comprehension and expressive language at ages 3, 4, and 5, respectively.
