Timescales for sounds and speech.

Personally I am always confused as to what age my son should be making particular sounds or talking, after a bit of research into this  I thought I would share my findings, this appears to be current!

This is not intended to cause alarm to you all if your child is not making the 'right' sounds for the age group, like anything of this nature each child is different and this is only a guide.

4 Months

When awake baby will make soft cooing and gurgling sounds

6 Months

Baby will be making laughter-like sounds. In addition, sing-song vowel sounds will be audible i.e a-a, adah, aroo, der, goo, mur

9 Months

Sounds will be made to communicate in friendliness or annoyance. Baby will show pleasure in babbling sounds such as 'ba ba ba', 'da da da' or 'ma ma ma' loudly and tunefully. Baby may also imitate other sounds like coughing or smacking lips.

12 Months

Babbling will often have a conversational-type rythym at this stage. Baby may also start to use one or two recognisable words.

15 Months

Baby will make lots of speech-like sounds and will use 2-6 recognisable words.

18 Months

When baby is playing speech-like sounds with a conversational rhythm may be audible. At this stage 6-20 words are typically recognisable.

24 Months

At this stage around 50 words will be recognisable and they will be used appropriately. Two or more words are linked together to make a simple sentence. Your toddler will talk to himself whilst playing and may join in nursery rhymes and songs.

30 Months

Will use 200+ recognisable words and these will include pronouns (i.e I, me, you) Your toddler will also be using sentences although many will obviously lack adult structure. Talking during play will continue and it will be more understandable, your toddler will ask questions and will say a few nursery rhymes.

36 Months

Your toddler will have a large vocabulary which is intelligible to everyone.

Source: MD Sheridan (rev Frost and Sharma 1997, Routledge, London)