Typical and Atypical

Development of
Communication
Emily Cavanaugh, Michaela Crawford,
Shelby Montgomery, Stephanie Schafer
First, let’s chat!

What do you think of when you

hear the word ‘communication?’
Let’s Go Deeper

What’s the difference between

speech and language?
 1 month

Typical Development

● Prefers the human face

● Recognizes some sounds
● May turn towards familiar sounds and voices

What to Watch For:

● Doesn’t focus and follow an object

● Doesn’t respond to loud sounds C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital, 2017
 2 months

Typical Development

● Begins to smile at people

● Begins to coo
● Turns head toward sounds

What to Watch for:

● No response to sounds
● No smiling C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital, 2017
 3 months

Typical Development

● Begins to babble
● Begins to imitate sounds
● Develops a “social smile”
○ This is different from the smiling previously mentioned
● Imitates facial expression

C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital, 2017

 4 months

Typical Development

● Cries with intent to show pain, fatigue, and hunger

● Babbles with expression- “Jargon”
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY
○ Variegated babbling

What to watch for:

● Doesn’t turn head to locate sounds C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital, 2017
6 months
Typical Development

● Makes sounds in response to other sounds

● Groups vowels together while babbling
● Turn-taking vocal play
● Responds to their own name
● Makes sounds to express emotion (joy and displeasure)
● Begins to add in consonant sounds

What to watch for:

● Doesn’t try to get items that are within their reach

● Shows no affection for caregiver
● Doesn’t make vowel sounds
● Doesn’t laugh or make squealing sounds Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017
 7 months

Typical Development

● Starting to respond to “no”

● Can differentiate between emotions from the tone of voice
● Adding more consonants

What to watch for:

● Not babbling by 8 months

C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital, 2017
 9 months

Typical Development

● Copies sounds and gestures of others

● Uses finger to point at things

What to watch for:

● Baby is not saying things like “mama”, “baba”, “dada”

● Doesn’t play any turn-taking games
● Doesn’t look where you point
● Doesn’t seem to recognize familiar people Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017
 12 months

Typical Development

● Says 2-3 words other than “mama” & “dada”

● Imitates common/familiar words
● Understands simple directions
● Understands that words represent objects (point to the object
when they say the word)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAMEtdljY2M
PRO-Ed Inc, 1999
 18 months
Typical Development

● Says several single words.

● Will use language to request, label, and engage others.
● Says and shakes head “no.”
● Starts to link simple words together to form rudimentary phrases. “Want ball, all gone”

What to watch for

● Doesn’t imitate others

● Doesn’t gain new words
● Does not point to show objects to others
● Loses skills they once had
● Does not seem interested in social/communicative engagement
PRO-Ed Inc, 1999
 2 years
Typical Development

●Will have around 50 words.

●Can name most common objects
●Uses “I” and “mine” appropriately
●Ask simple questions
● Use 2 - 3 word utterances
● Gains new words at a rapid pace

What to watch for

● No new gains in skills PRO-Ed Inc, 1999

 3-4 years
Typical Development

● Has about 1,000 words

● Can answer questions (who, what, where, why)
● Ask questions to inquire about new experiences and get needs met
● Identifies and uses rhyming words
● Combines words into 3-4 word sentences
● Will use about 4 sentences at a time to narrate experiences
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-90qSC1vqhg

What to watch for

● Sentences not growing in length or complexity

● Little interest in talking to adults or other children PRO-Ed Inc, 1999
● Difficulty answering simple questions
 4-5 years
Typical Development

● Able to tell a short narrative

● Is able to keep a conversation going
● Is able to adjust conversational style based on time, communication partner, and place (i.e. uses shorter
sentences with younger siblings, talks louder outside than inside).
● Demonstrates academic abilities within language, such as naming letters and numbers.
● Continues to learn lots of new vocabulary at a rapid rate.

What to watch for

● Has a difficult time formulating sentences

● Doesn’t ask questions
● Lots of grammatical difficulties in their sentences

Keep in mind…. Children develop at their own pace. One child may have all of these skills by age 4, and one may not develop
these skills until the end of this age range.
PRO-Ed Inc, 1999
 5-6 years
Typical Development

● Sentences continue to grow in complexity

● Uses imaginative language within pretend play
● Is able to describe several attributes about an object
● Talks about past and future events
● Uses pronouns, adverbs, irregular plurals and irregular past tense

What to watch for

● Difficulty with academic concepts (temporal, quantity, positional, size concepts)

● No gains in grammatical or vocabulary complexity
● Does not use language socially (engaging in play, seeking out interactions, sharing
experiences) PRO-Ed Inc, 1999
 References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Learn the Signs: Important Milestones. Retrieved from
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/

C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital. (2017). Developmental milestones. Retrieved from

https://www.mottchildren.org/posts/your-child/developmental-milestones

Kid Sense Child Development. (2018). Stages of Language Development Checklist. Retrieved from
https://childdevelopment.com.au/resources/child-development-charts/stages-of-language-development-
checklist/

PRO-Ed Inc. (1999). Speech and language milestone chart. Retrieved from
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6313