Speech development by age group
Every child’s language and speech develop at their own pace. The stages of development of the same native language follow the same sequence, but the pace can vary greatly from one child to another. Find out more about under 1-year-old baby's speech development
Between the ages of 1.5 and 2, the child usually already has a vocabulary: a few words at first and then gradually more. The child always understands more than they are able to say.
A child under the age of two can usually already follow small instructions and prompts. For example, the child will go get a certain toy when asked. The child is also able to play symbolic games, such as taking care of a doll or driving a toy car.
Ask for advice and help if
- the child has no need to communicate with others
- the child does not use any words or gestures to ask for things or express their needs or emotions
- it appears that the child cannot understand verbal instructions and everything also has to be shown to them
- the child does not begin to play symbolic games or otherwise plays very little
- the child’s voice is abnormal.
At the age of 2 and a half years, the child appears to be learning new words every day. The child uses nouns and verbs the most, i.e. the names of objects and things and words that express action. Little by little, the child begins to also use an increasing number of descriptive words, i.e. adjectives, pronouns (e.g. ‘I’, ‘you’) and conjunctions (e.g. ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘as’, ‘only’, ‘but’).
At this age, the child also often tries their skills in practice and may use self-invented expressions that go against grammar.
Ask for advice and help if
- the child uses fewer than ten words
- the child is unable to form sentences with two or more words
- the child does not follow easy instructions or misunderstands them: the situation requires further evaluation particularly when a child has a limited vocabulary as well as difficulty understanding speech
- the child or the people around them are confused by the child’s stutter or speech challenges
- the child’s voice is abnormal.
By the age of three, most of a child’s speech is understandable even to an unfamiliar adult. The development of the child’s speech and language often includes a period during which they are constantly asking questions as their vocabulary continues to expand.
The child forms and uses command, negative, and interrogative sentences.
The child can express the place or location of an object.
The child is interested in wordplay and nursery rhymes. The development of linguistic awareness begins.
Ask for advice and help if
- the child’s speech is very unclear, and the phonetic form of the words is so lacking that an adult unfamiliar with the child cannot understand their speech at all
- the child’s vocabulary is very limited
- the child is unable to follow compound instructions (e.g. ‘put the car in the toy box and come to the kitchen’) or misunderstands them
- the child exhibits stuttering symptoms or has difficulty in speaking, which bewilders the child or the people around them
- the child’s voice is abnormal.
A 4-year-old child understands everyday speech well. The child talks about things using various parts of speech in the same proportion as an adult would in everyday speech.
The child knows the basic rules of sentence formation. They also use subordinate clauses. It may also appear that the child is a very meticulous user of grammatical structures – this stage usually passes as the grammatical rules become more “mundane” in the child’s skills.
The child asks ‘why’ questions and tells and invents stories.
The child’s expressions of place and time start to become more precise.
The child’s speech is clear, even if they are not necessarily yet able to use all sounds or combinations thereof.
Ask for advice and help if
- the child’s vocabulary seems limited; the child should know hundreds of words
- the child is unable to tell the colour, size, shape and number of things or objects or makes mistakes in these matters
- the child only forms very simple sentences
- the child uses inflections wrong
- the child is unable to describe a picture
- the child appears to have obvious shortcomings in their social and conversational skills
- the child has so much difficulty articulating sounds or otherwise speaks so unclearly that their speech is difficult to understand
- the child exhibits stuttering symptoms or has difficulty in speaking, which bewilders the child or the people around them
- the child’s voice is abnormal.
A 5-year-old child understands and uses diverse language fluently. They have a grasp of the basic concepts and the inflection rules of their native language. The child’s speech is clear, and they can articulate most sounds.
Ask for advice and help if
- the child has difficulty understanding speech
- the child’s speech is limited and clunky
- the child’s speech often features syllables and sounds that are out of place and pronunciation errors
- the child has stuttering symptoms
- the child’s voice is abnormal.
The vocabulary of a 6-year-old, i.e. a preschool-aged child, is extensive, and their articulation is consistent with everyday language.
The child names objects and images without difficulty. The child’s awareness of sounds begins to develop. The child has become interested in learning to read.
The child has basic interactive skills, i.e.:
- they focus on listening to speech
- they ask questions about what they have heard
- they answer questions and take turns talking
- they act according to the instructions given to them.
Multilingualism in the family
The speech development of a child who hears and uses several languages in their environment is essentially the same as that of a monolingual child.
Speak your strongest language to your child so that they will learn natural and rich language. If your partner speaks a language different from yours, you can both speak to your child in your respective languages.
The child needs to hear and use enough of the languages that you want them to learn. If there are few speakers of your home language in the child’s everyday life, you will have to focus on the child’s development in the home language. Good skills in the home language will also support learning Finnish.
If your child does not speak Finnish at home and you would like for them to learn the language in Finnish-language daycare, be prepared for it to take a couple of years for the child to acquire good skills in the language. In a year, they will be learning the basics, and in a couple of years they will probably be speaking the language at a reasonable level for their age.
Ask for advice and help if
- the child’s home language is slow to develop or exhibits strange characteristics
- the child does not understand another language that they hear a lot and regularly in everyday life
- the child has difficulty using inflections with verbs, i.e. words that express action, in both or all languages
- the child uses simple and short sentences even though children in their age group are expected to be able to use longer sentences
- it seems that the child has difficulty learning the rules of language, and the mistakes that they make seem random.
Speech development problems
Many speech and language skills can be practised through play and everyday activities. If your child is having trouble learning to speak, there are lots of things that you can do at home to support their development.
- See tips to help your child's speech development | Surrey County Council (Youtube)(Link leads to external service)
- About speech development from 3 to 4 Years & ways to support it | Eastern Ontario Health Unit (Youtube)(Link leads to external service)
- About speech development from 4 to 5 Years & ways to support it | Eastern Ontario Health Unit (Youtube)(Link leads to external service)
- Videos on how to practise speech sounds | Star City Speech (Youtube)(Link leads to external service)
Clarity of speech
Articulation errors, i.e. problems with the production of speech sounds, are very common among children. According to some studies, up to one in four children still produce a sound incorrectly when they start school.
The neural basis of speech motor skills keeps developing up to school age.
If your child’s speech clarity is significantly different from that of their peers, if it is difficult to understand the child’s speech even for the people at home, or if the child themself says that a phonetic error is affecting their speech, you should bring the matter up at the maternity and child health clinic.
If necessary, your maternity and child health clinic nurse will refer you to a speech therapist who can give you home exercises for practising speech clarity.
If you are instructed to practise sounds at home, make it a regular habit. Practising sounds is a motor skill exercise that requires a lot of repetition to work.
