When to contact us

Speech, language and social communication skills are constantly developing throughout childhood. It is only when these skills fall behind those of their peers that children may need help from a Speech and Language Therapist.

Within the first years of language development we would expect children to do the following:-

18 months

Children’s speech will be quite indistinct at this age.
You should be able to recognise certain consistent words for objects or people.
They will follow simple instructions e.g. ‘Show me the cat’
They should understand a range of words for objects and will point to several objects and pictures in a book.

2 years

By this age children should be using 50+ words.
They will be able to follow two words in an instruction e.g. ‘Where is Harry’s nose; ‘Where’s Mummy’s mouth?’
They will be putting words together to make two word phrases e.g. ‘Daddy’s car’; ‘Harry’s car’.
They will understand simple attributes for example, dirty, wet, cold.
They will be joining in with nursery rhymes and songs.
They will probably still not have very clear speech and may miss off consonants at the ends of words..

3 years

By this age your child will be speaking in phrases/ simple sentences.
They will be able to follow more difficult instructions e.g. ‘Put teddy and dolly on the sofa’.
They will understand some prepositions for example, ‘on’, ‘under’.
They will be able to take part in simple conversations.
They will be asking what, where and who questions.
They will be able to talk about things that happen away from home for instance, at nursery/daycare.
They will now be using consonants at the ends of words.
They will still have difficulty with certain sounds for example, ‘s’, ‘f’, ‘k’ and saying those sounds together for example, ‘spoon’.

4 years

Your child will be able to understand and answer questions about stories you are reading with them.
They will understand most of what is said in day-to-day simple conversations around them.
They will be using long and complex sentences and will be able to tell you about events that have happened in detail.
Most consonants are used correctly although certain sounds are still developing for example, ‘r’, ‘th’, ‘sh’.

For older children, please feel free to call us to discuss.