Language Milestones: 2 to 3 years
Author: Dr. Anna Kaplan
As explained in "Language Milestones: 1 to 2 years," language milestones are successes that mark various stages of language development. They are both receptive (hearing) and expressive (speech). This means that in addition to being able to make sounds and words, your child also needs to be able to hear and understand.
Your two-year-old should be able to communicate with you fairly well. They will master more language skills between ages two and three. They may have had a "word spurt" or still be in the middle of one. This means that they may be acquiring new words at a very rapid rate.
In "Language Milestones: 1 to 2 years," key developments were listed. Your toddler may be doing what most two-year-olds do at age 23 months or 25 months. They will continue to enjoy learning new words, naming pictures in books, pointing out parts of the body, and other similar activities. You can be teaching her the sounds that animals make.
Language milestones may be reached throughout the entire year. Your child should be making progress. The more language skills they have going into their third year, the further they will progress.
Significant Language Milestones
- 200 word vocabulary - This milestone is reached anywhere between 19 and 30 months. If they don't know 200 words by their second birthday, they will well before their third. They will continue to learn new words.
- Using words - By the time they are three years old, your toddler will have a word they use for almost everything. It will not be a perfect, adult word, but will be consistent.
- Simple sentences - By two years, your child will have put two words together. They will start to use three-word sentences during their third year. They will also be developing some grammar skills.
- Types of words - Your two to three-year-old will start using more words that are not nouns. They will start to use simple words to describe objects, such as small or big. They will begin to use pronouns and will be using verbs.
- Use of speech - Between two and three years of age, your child will make the transition from gesturing to using speech to ask for something or get your attention.
- Understandable speech - By 30 months of age, the family should be able to understand your toddler's speech.
- Body parts - They will get even better at naming parts of the body.
- Instructions - Your two to three-year-old will be able to follow increasingly complex instructions, such as those with two parts. An example could be, "Pick up your doll and bring it to me."
Causes for concern
- If your child loses language or other skills at any time, they need to be evaluated quickly. Children of all ages should be progressing, and not going backwards.
- Understandable speech - You and the rest of the family (or other primary caregivers) should be able understand your child by the time they are 30 months old. If you cannot, that is a cause for concern.
- Simple sentences - By three years of age, your toddler should be able to speak short, simple sentences.
- Simple questions - Your three-year-old should also be able to ask simple questions.
- Speech understandable to strangers - Your child's speech should be increasingly clear. By three years of age, if strangers cannot understand any of their speech, that is a cause for concern. Strangers should be able to understand about half of their speech.
- Simplification - By three years, words should be closer to the real thing. Your child should not be dropping a lot of syllables.
- Three-year-old, bottom line - If your child's speech is not clear by this time, they need a thorough evaluation
My son's first sentence, as I recall, was "pick my up," which meant, "pick me up." My husband's first longer sentence was in Spanish, his first language. He said, "I go bye-bye in bus and train." It was actually Spanglish, because he said bye-bye. Here it is if you speak Spanish, "Voy a bye-bye en gua gua y tren."
Children in bilingual families may show a slight delay in reaching milestones for both languages, but will eventually reach all of them in two languages. The slight delay is more than compensated for by the fact that the child speaks two languages. It is much, much harder to completely learn a second language later in life.
You and your three-year-old should be able to communicate with each other very well. This will continue to be fun for both adults and children. You should continue to read to your child and help her with her word acquisition. She will ask many questions. My son started with "What dat?" meaning "What is that?" You will hear some variation of this short sentence a lot from your child during this time, and they will be very proud of all the words they have learned.
