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Free Checklist: Speech skills for kids aged 0-7
Your son or daughter’s speech and language development begins before they say their first words. This helpful chart, shared by the speech therapists at Kids First in Sydney’s northern beaches, will help you determine if your child is reaching their speech and language developmental milestones.
All children are different and the age at which they acquire speech and language skills often vary, however the order in which these developmental milestones are achieved is usually the same.
CHILD’S AGE
0-6 months
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TYPICAL SPEECH AND LANGUAGE SKILLS
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7-12 months
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19-24 months
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2-3 years
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3-4 years
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4-5 years
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5-6 years
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6-7 years
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When should you worry about your child?
If your child has a limited vocabulary for their age and a combination of two or more of the above risk factors, consulting a speech pathologist may be helpful.
International research has shown that children who have a risk factors such as
- a family history of speech, language and literacy issues,
- comprehension problems,
- difficulties making themselves understood
are at greatest risk of having a continuing language delay [1].
So, instead of adopting a “wait and see” approach, we strongly recommend that you seek advice about your child as early as possible.
A paediatric speech pathologist is trained to identify children’s communication needs.
A simple consultation may relieve you of your worries if your child’s skills are tracking well, but if that consultation picks problems up early, you will gain a valuable opportunity to help your child catch up with peers quickly and easily.

Do issues resolve on their own?
The short answer is yes, it is possible for children’s communication challenges to resolve on their own – but only sometimes.
While some children’s speech, language and listening issues do resolve without intervention, studies are showing that this group of children usually have to work harder to achieve social and academic success do not perform as well as their peers in certain aspects of language, literacy and learning [3].
If your child is a ‘Late Talker’ contact Kids First to find out how we can help your son or daughter to avoid further language difficulties later on
Worried about your child’s speech?
References:
- Ellis, E. & Thal, D. (2008). Early Language Delay and Risk for Language Impairment. Perspectives on Language Learning and Education, 15: 93-100.
- Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (2008, May 16). Mixed Results For Late-talking Toddlers. ScienceDaily. 16 May 2008. Web. 10 Jun. 2011.
- Rice, M. L., Taylor, C. L., & Zubrick, S.R. (2008). Language outcomes of 7-year-old children with or without a history of late language emergence at 24 months. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51, 394-407.