Child Oral Communication Skills Development: Strategies and Milestones

DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

Developmental Milestones
 0-3 months: Shows response to sounds or
voices by smiling, crying or turning head,
cries differently when needs are different.
 3 – 12 months: Most of cooing and babbling
sounds are developed in this stage (Lust,
2006). The child will communicate through
gestures like waving. In the later phase of this
stage, the babbling is also marked by
jargoning where it might seem like the baby is
having a conversation.
 12 – 18 months: This is the stage where the
baby starts producing the first meaningful
words, like ‘mama’ for indicating mother and
‘dada’ or ‘baba’ for father (Lust, 2006). The
sounds may simply be monosyllabic or may
also continue for multiple syllables like
‘dadadada...’.
 18 months – 2 years: By the end of 2 years,
the toddler would have expanded her
vocabulary and would start to produce the first
sentences. For instance “I go away”, I go
play?”, “dada kitty” etc. They will not be
syntactically rich or correct, but the child
would be able to make the parent understand
what they want to convey (Bruner, 1985).
 2 – 3 years: In this stage, the vocabulary
further increases to include more words (Press,
2015). She is able to speak longer and more
complex sentences that can be understood
even by strangers.
 3 – 5 years: by this time, the early
development of vocabulary stabilizes and the
child is able to produce more complicated and
abstract sentences that might not have
meaning. The vocabulary at this stage would
consist of words like if, but, so, because etc.
 5 – 8 years: This is the period of early
education where the child would start actively
start learning more words and using them in
communication. She will start having a better
grasp of the phonological features of the
language and would be able to produce
grammatically accurate sentences capable of
holding meaningful conversation.
Child Oral Communication Skills development

Strategies for children aged birth through Pre-K that would embed learning opportunities
that encourage communication in everyday routines, relationships, activities, and places
What can you do?
At home
 Start by encouraging the child to
produce more sounds like ‘mama’
or ‘dada’. In the later stages include
conversation in all aspects of daily
activities like during painting,
bathing, feeding or dressing. Ask
questions that the child can answer
(Bruner, 1985), like “what do you
want to eat? Apple? You want
apple? Do you like apple?”.
Expand on the words that the child
uses, like “I am mama. Mama love
you. Do you love mama?”. Lastly,
read to the child from books that
are colorful and have bigger
pictures.
 In the later stage till pre K, use
clearer words and full sentences
ensuring simplicity. Ask questions
that require making a choice
(Perotta et al., 2013), like “Do you
want an apple or a banana?”.
Incorporate more yes no questions.
Lastly, shift from story books to
using more knowledge based books
like ones on animals, body parts