Empowering Parents: When Should My Toddler Begin Speaking
- Between the ages of 2-3, typically developing children are putting 2-3 words together to create choppy "sentences" to talk about and ask for things. For example, "Mommy get cup". Their speech can be understood by familiar listeners most of the time.
- 3-4 year-olds should be using a lot of sentences that have 4 or more words to talk about activities at school, what happened during the day, using about 4 sentences at a time when talking about something. They can use pronouns like "I, me, you, we, and they" as well as some plural words like "toys, birds, buses" appropriately and people outside of the family can usually understand what they are saying. "I went on the playground. We blew bubbles and ran. John fell down and was sad."
- 4-5 year-olds should be using sentences to tell a story and keep a conversation going. They should be able to use sentences that have more than 1 action word like "jump, play and get". "Can we go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch today?" [parent response] “I want to get nuggets and french fries and play on the slides. Then we can give our toys back and get ice cream!"
If you have a question for one of our therapists, message us on Facebook @PedsPlusAR.The name of the person that submitted it will remain anonymous. We will be answering questions on a weekly basis. Please know that if you feel your child needs therapy services, we advise that you consult your pediatrician.