What are milestones?

Milestones are skills and behaviors that children gain as they grow up and continue to develop! Milestones are broken up into “stages” and/or “age ranges” because all children hit milestones at slightly different times. Language milestones include articulation, receptive language, expressive language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and literacy expectations. 

It’s important to remember that these milestones are not exact numbers. A child may develop a variety of speech and language skills slightly before or after the target age. 

What is Articulation? 

Articulation is how we move the parts of our mouth to make certain sounds and how we use that for verbal communication. For example, some sounds require you to bring your lips together (b, p, m) while other sounds require you to place your lips to your teeth (f, v). These movements require a wide range of muscle/motor planning and sequencing which can make it difficult for children to complete. It is important to remember that children can’t make all these sounds when they first begin talking and this is completely normal! Articulation starts to get easier as they grow older and therefore, we have articulation milestones! 

These are the following milestones for Birth to Six:  

Written By:
Student Speech Therapy Clinician
Stephanie Ochoa, B.A.
Lewis University

References:

Four to Five Years Old. (2009). Asha.org. https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/45/

CDC. (2018, August 29). Important Milestones: Your Baby By Five Years. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-5yr.html‌

Developmental Milestones: 3 to 4 Year Olds. (2019). HealthyChildren.org. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Developmental-Milestones-3-to-4-Year-Olds.aspx

Language Development Milestones Edited by Nicole Sax and Erin Weston. (2007). http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/milestones.pdf

Speech and Language Milestone Chart | LD Topics | LD OnLine. (2020). Ldonline.org. http://www.ldonline.org/article/6313‌