Welcome back to our last post in the series “Milestones: Navigating the Numbers”! This series was inspired by the updated American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Developmental Milestones. Read more on the expected speech, language, social-pragmatic, and feeding milestones expected by age 1, age 2, age 3 and age 4.
Now, let’s chat about the fantastic fives!
By five, you’ll notice your child will begin to transition from a “little kid” to a big one! At this age, your child will love to tell stories (both real and imaginary) filled with details, mature sentence structures and more vocabulary terms. They should be able to converse with both other children and adults, rhyme words together, and answer wh-questions (who, what, when, where, why) and questions pertaining to stories.
Want to know more? Keep reading for specific milestones within receptive and expressive language, speech production, and phonological skills!
By 5 years old:
Receptive Language Skills (the comprehension of language):
Follows directions and rules to play games.
Comprehends and uses more location words.
For example, your child may say “It’s behind the tree” or “It’s between the chairs”.
Expressive Language Skills (ability to communicate wants, needs, thoughts and feelings):
Tells stories.
Includes details such as main characters and settings
Uses words like “and” to connect information and ideas.
Begins to irregular plural forms (uses at least one).
For exam[pe, your child should say “feet” or “men”.
Produce grammatically correct sentences.
Sentences are longer!
Uses at least one irregular plural.
For example, your child may say “feet” or “men”.
Uses words to indicate time.
For example, your child may say “yesterday” or “tomorrow”.
Speech Production Skills (Sound Production):
Speech is understandable to others in conversations.
Produces all vowel and consonant sounds correctly by age 5, except voiceless “th”.
Voiceless “th” is expected to be mastered by age 6.
Phonological Awareness (awareness of the sound structure and ability to work with the sounds of spoken language):
Imitates reading and writing from left to right.
Identifies the front of the book and can locate the book title.
Recognizes and names 10 or more letters.
Usually is able to write their own name.
Identifies rhymes, such as “sat” and “hat”.
Blends word parts together, such as “sail” and “boat” to make “sailboat”.
Feeding Skills:
Your child consumes a variety of foods by age 5. They are able to chew and swallow all food with no difficulties.
Check out more on milestones here:
https://www.owlstherapy.com/new-blog/milestones-vs-averages
https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/communication-milestones/
Do you have additional questions on your child’s development? We offer free phone consultations with a certified speech-language pathologist. These are designed to help answer your questions, discuss any concerns, and determine the next steps to best help your child. Contact us today!
Northern Virginia
Phone: 703-470-6957
Email: info@owlstherapy.com
Philadelphia’s Main Line
Phone: 610-579-0914
Email: philadelphia@owlstherapy.com