Communication Milestones For My 5 Year Old

This post will provide a quick check-list that parent’s can reference to see if their child is

reaching their communication milestones.

Let’s get started and learn more about your child’s speech

Why Are Communication Milestones Important?

Communication Milestones For My 5 Year Old

How Do I Know If My Child Needs Speech Services?

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Why Are Communication Milestones Important?

As a parent, it can be difficult to know how your child’s communication is developing. It’s even more difficult when every child developes at a slightly different pace. How do you know if your child is progressing in their communication or if they need help from a speech therapist? That’s what we are here for. We want to help parents feel empowered and help you get rid of some of those fears. “Developmental milestones will help you be familiar with what to expect as a child grows (and) identify skills to work on with your child and when to get professional assistance.” (ASHA, 2023). Milestones are not screeners or evaluations. It is a great tool to add to your parent tool kit, but these are not the only factors to consider when dealing with your child’s communication.

Communication Milestones For My 5 Year Old

• Grammatically correct sentences

• Recognizes and names 10 or more letters

• Intelligibility for unknown listeners should be at least 66%, but the average is around 85%

• Producing sounds: p, b, d, m, n, w, h, t, k, g, -ing, f, y, v, s, z, sh, ch, j

• Understands the concepts: next to, besides, behind, in front, around, between, off, out, of, away, and together

• Uses pronouns: he/ she, they/them, hers/his, our/ours, their/theirs, herself/himself/ themselves

• Includes characters and setting when telling a story

• Uses: Possessive ‘s (“mom’s car”), plural -s (“dogs”), past tense (“stopped”), articles (“a” and “the"), plural -s (“flowers”), and uses noun + verb-ing (“ girl is running”), has at least one irregular plural ("men")

• Answers: when, more complex “who”, more complex “what”, more complex “where”, “how”, and “why”

• Understands some rhyming ("bat" and "rat")

How Do I Know If My Child Needs Speech Services?

You now have more information to help guide you to understand your child’s communication. If your child is not reaching these communication milestones you can reach out to your pediatrician or a speech therapist in your area to get more information.

If you are located in Colorado our practice can provide you with a free consultation or evaluation to provide you further insight into your child’s speech. You are not alone in this. We want to help your child succeed. Just go to peakviewspeechtherapy.com and schedule today.

References

Nicolosi, L., Harriman, E., & Kresheck, J. (2006). Terminology of communication disorders (4th ed.). Baltimore, MD:Williams & Wilkins. Owens, R. E. (1996). Language Developement: An Introduction. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Hustard, K.C., Maher, T. J., Natxke, P., & Rathaus, P.J. (2021). Speech development between 30 and 119 months in typical children I: Intelligibility growth curves for since-word and multi word productions. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2023). American Speech-Language-Hearing Website, accessed 2 November 2023. <https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/>

Crowe, K., & McLead, S. (2020). Children’s English Consonant Acquisition in the United States: A Review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.