Speech and language milestones by age: birth to 5

Most children say their first words around their first birthday, combine two words by age 2, and speak in sentences that strangers can mostly follow by age 3. The table below lays out the milestones from birth to 5, using the 2023 ASHA communication milestones (endorsed by Speech-Language & Audiology Canada in 2024) and the word-count benchmarks used by SickKids and the Toronto Preschool Speech and Language program. Use it to understand what is typical and when it is worth asking for an assessment.

How to read milestone ages

Milestone lists look precise, but each one is built on a specific rule. The ASHA 2023 milestones list skills by the age at which at least 75 percent of monolingual English-speaking children have them. In other words, a quarter of typically developing children may reach a given item a little later. The SickKids and Toronto Preschool Speech and Language figures describe what a typical child in Ontario is doing at that age and are used as screening benchmarks.

Because of this, a single late item rarely tells you much on its own. What matters more is the overall pattern: how many skills are late, whether understanding and talking are both affected, and whether your child is steadily gaining new skills. If you want a structured way to check, the free milestone checklist walks through the same items by age.

Milestones at a glance: birth to 5

The next sections expand on each stage and point out what parents often ask about.

Stage by stage

Birth to 12 months: listening, cooing and babbling

In the first few months, communication is mostly about hearing and reacting. Babies startle at loud noises, settle when they hear a familiar voice, and start cooing with vowel-like sounds. Between 4 and 6 months, true babbling begins, with consonants such as “b”, “m” and “p” joined to vowels.

From 7 to 12 months, babbling becomes longer and more varied (“babababa”, “mamama”), and babies begin to use gestures on purpose. They reach up to be held, wave, and by around 12 months point at things they want or find interesting. Pointing matters because it is an early form of sharing attention, and gesture use in infancy is linked to later vocabulary. By the first birthday, most babies say one or two words, and the Toronto Preschool Speech and Language benchmark is 3 to 5 words.

Hearing is the foundation for all of this. Ontario screens newborn hearing through the Infant Hearing Program, but ear infections and fluid in the middle ear can affect hearing later. If your baby is not responding to sounds or has stopped babbling, a hearing check is the first step.

12 to 24 months: first words to first sentences

The second year is when vocabulary takes off. According to the ASHA milestones, most toddlers say 10 or more words by 18 months, and the SickKids benchmark is about 20. Between 18 and 24 months, many children go through a “word spurt” where they add several new words a week. By age 2, the ASHA milestone is at least 50 words and two-word combinations. The Toronto PSL benchmark for a typical 2-year-old is higher, at 100 to 150 words and 2 to 4 word combinations.

The gap between those figures is not a contradiction. ASHA’s 50 words is a threshold that at least 75 percent of children have passed, while the Toronto figure describes a typical child. A 2-year-old with fewer than 50 words and no two-word combinations is usually described as a late talker, and our guide on what parents of a late talker can do explains what that means.

Understanding also grows quickly. By 18 months, most toddlers follow simple one-step directions (“get your shoes”) and can point to a body part. By 2, they manage two-step directions and understand far more than they say. If you are counting words, the toddler word counter is a simple way to keep track, and our guide on how many words a toddler should say explains what counts as a word.

2 to 3 years: phrases, grammar and clearer speech

Between 2 and 3, children move from two-word phrases to short sentences. They start using grammar: plural “s” (“dogs”), “-ing” verb endings (“running”), and location words like “in” and “under”. They ask lots of “what” and “why” questions and can tell you their name.

Speech clarity improves a great deal during this year. A rule of thumb used in clinical practice is that unfamiliar listeners understand about half of what a 2-year-old says, about three-quarters at age 3, and nearly everything by age 4. The Toronto PSL benchmark is that a 3-year-old is mostly understood by strangers and uses sentences of 5 to 8 words. Sounds expected by around age 3 in the Crowe and McLeod (2020) data include p, b, m, n, h, w and d. The intelligibility estimator gives a rough sense of where your child sits.

3 to 5 years: stories, conversations and the last sounds

By 3 to 4, children answer “who”, “what”, “where” and “why” questions, use sentences of four or more words, and can retell a simple story from a book. They understand colours, shapes and comparison words such as “bigger”. The ASHA milestone for this age includes using the sounds p, b, m, h, w, d, n, t, k, g, f and y.

By 4 to 5, most children tell short stories with at least two events, keep a conversation going over several turns, and adjust how they talk depending on who they are speaking to. They understand order words (“first”, “next”, “last”) and time words (“yesterday”, “tomorrow”). Speech should be almost fully understandable to strangers, although sounds such as l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh and th may still be developing. The cross-linguistic review by McLeod and Crowe (2018) found that most consonants are acquired by age 5 across languages, with later sounds such as “r” and “th” often taking until 6 or 7 in English. The speech sound checker and our speech sound development chart go through the ages for each sound.

When a milestone is late

Milestones are most useful as a prompt to look closer, not as a pass or fail. Common signs that are worth an assessment include no babbling by 12 months, no words by 18 months, fewer than 50 words or no two-word combinations by 24 months, speech that parents cannot understand at 3, loss of any skill at any age, and any concern about hearing. Our guide on when to see a speech-language pathologist covers these triggers in more detail.

In Ontario, families with a child who has not yet started school can self-refer to the free Preschool Speech and Language Program. No doctor’s referral and no diagnosis is needed. A registered speech-language pathologist will look at understanding, talking, speech sounds, play and social communication together, which gives a much fuller picture than any checklist. Earlier support tends to be easier for both the child and the family, and an assessment often provides reassurance when development turns out to be on track.

What you can do at home

Whatever your child’s age, the same everyday habits support language. Talk about what your child is looking at and doing. Pause and wait so they have a chance to respond. Repeat what they say and add a word (“car” becomes “big car”). Read books together every day and sing songs with actions. Keep screens off for children under 2 and limited for preschoolers, following Canadian Paediatric Society guidance. Our guide on everyday strategies to help your child talk explains each of these in detail by age band.

Milestones give you a map. Your child’s own pace, interests and personality fill in the rest, and if anything on this page gives you pause, asking for an assessment is a reasonable next step rather than an overreaction.