Normal worry for every parent: How can I recognize if my child has a delayed speech?

Is your child not speaking as much as you expected? Are you concerned about their speech development? Each small step, every little accomplishment, and every big moment in your child’s life reveals how they are growing. These moments provide important clues about your child’s physical, mental, emotional, and social development. It’s important to know that children grow at their own pace. However, if you see them going backward in their development, struggling to engage, or having difficulty understanding words, it could be a sign of a speech issue.

Here are some quick ways to check if your child has a speech delay:

By birth to 5 months, your child should have been:

• Vocalizing with cooing sounds.
• Expressing pleasure and displeasure through various sounds like laughter, giggles, cries, or fussing.
• Responding with sounds when talked to.

From 6 to 11 months, your child should:

• Begin to comprehend the concept of “no-no.”
• Engage in babbling, saying syllables like “ba-ba-ba.”
• Utter “ma-ma” or “da-da” without specific meaning.
• Try to communicate using actions or gestures.
• Make attempts to imitate sounds.
• Utter their first meaningful word.

Between 12 and 17 months, a child should:

• Respond nonverbally to simple questions.
• Use 2 to 3 words to name a person or object, though pronunciation may not be clear.
• Make an effort to mimic simple words.
• Expand vocabulary to about four to six words.

Between 18 and 23 months, kids should start to:

• Possess a vocabulary of approximately 50 words, often with unclear pronunciation.
• Request common foods by name.
• Mimic animal sounds like “moo.”
• Combine words, e.g., “more milk.”
• Use pronouns like “mine.”
• Form 2-word phrases.

From 2 to 3 years, kids should:

• Understand spatial concepts such as “in” or “on.
• Recognize pronouns like “you,” “me,” or “her.”
• Grasp descriptive words like “big” or “happy.”
• Construct 3-word sentences.
• Become more accurate in speech but may still omit ending sounds. Strangers can generally understand the child’s speech.
• Respond to simple questions.
• Initiate the use of more pronouns like “you” or “I.”
• Utilize question inflection to request things, e.g., “My ball?”
• Begin incorporating plurals, like “shoes” or “socks,” and regular past tense verbs, such as “jumped.”

From 3 to 4 years, kids should normally be able to:

• Group objects by category, like foods or clothes.
• Identify colors.
• Utilize most speech sounds but may mispronounce challenging sounds like l, r, s, sh, ch, y, v, z, and th. Full mastery of these sounds may occur around ages 7–8.
• Apply consonants at the beginning, middle, and end of words, even if some challenging consonants are imperfectly articulated.
• Be generally understandable to strangers.
• Describe the purpose of objects, such as a “fork” or “car.”
• Enjoy language play, including poetry and understanding linguistic humor.
• Express ideas and emotions rather than merely describing the world.
• Incorporate verbs ending in “ing,” e.g., “walking” or “talking.”
• Answer basic questions like “What do you do when you’re hungry?”
• Repeat sentences.

Between 4 and 5 years, kids can:

• Grasp spatial concepts like “behind” or “next to.”
• Understand complex questions.
• Be generally understandable but may involve mispronunciations in long, challenging, or complex words, such as “hippopotamus.
• Use some irregular past tense verbs like “ran” or “fell.”
• Describe how to perform tasks, such as painting a picture.
• List items belonging to categories like animals or vehicles.
• Respond to “why” questions.

At 5 years old, kids normally can:

• Comprehend time sequences, such as the order of events.
• Follow a series of three instructions.
• Recognize rhyming words.
• Engage in conversations.
• Construct sentences with eight or more words.
• Form compound and complex sentences.
• Provide descriptions of objects.
• Utilize imagination to craft stories.

Should I be worried, and what should I do next?

If you notice any setbacks or delays in your child’s development, don’t hesitate to seek assistance early. This helps your child overcome challenges sooner and maximize their learning potential during this crucial phase. It’s important to note that nearly 1 in 12 children in the United States is diagnosed with a speech or voice-related disorder, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Speech delays should not be seen as embarrassing; they simply mean your child has specific learning needs, and we can help identify and address them.

Contact us if you suspect delays in your child’s development.

Is your child not hitting these milestones? Join us on a journey to nurture your child’s speech and language development. Every child is unique, and while their progress may vary, with PenguinSmart’s tailored support, they can achieve remarkable results.

PenguinSmart’s commitment to childhood speech and language development goes beyond traditional approaches. Our programs actively involve parents in their child’s journey, ensuring enduring and impressive progress. Through the seamless integration of effective communication techniques into daily life, we’ve seen children make incredible strides in their speech and language development.