Milestones of Communication

Milestones of Communication:

Development of Communication Skills

Typically, parents watch their child’s development closely. Physical and communication milestones become major topics of discussion, material for comparison or boasting, and sometimes cause for concern. For example, a parent might boast, “Joey walked at nine months!” Or they may voice concern with a statement like, “Matthew still hasn’t said his first word.”

Parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing watch those developmental milestone charts in the same way as other parents. In fact, parents with deaf or hard of hearing children may follow the milestones for communication skills even more closely since this is often the area where their children will demonstrate some delay. Typical communication milestones highlighted in traditional charts usually only recognize verbal communication skills (spoken English/speech). However, children who are deaf or hard of hearing may develop both verbal (spoken) and non-verbal (gestural and/or sign language) communication skills. This means that traditional developmental milestone charts fail to recognize all of the communication skills that their child may be developing. When we fail to recognize these emerging communication skills, we may not foster them as much as we could or would like to. And how can we celebrate emerging communicative abilities if we are unaware of them?

In order to celebrate a deaf and hard of hearing child’s communication abilities, we need to have a broader understanding of “communication.” In this resource, both visual and oral communication milestones have been included. It does not, however, contain every possible way that children can or will communicate. It is to provide guidance to recognizing the emergence of a variety of communication behaviors and to support areas that do not seem to be developing age appropriately.

To make better use of the charts, you may need to have a better understanding of the category headings. The term communicative intent refers to the way in which a child uses gestures, vocalizations and/or language to let you know what they want or need. It is communication with a purpose. Signed and Verbal Production are the signs and/or spoken words that children produce. Listening Skill Development may also apply to a child with various degrees of hearing loss; this is the way in which a child develops listening skills and/or benefits from the use of hearing aids or a cochlear implant. Literacy Development refers to behaviors related to the written word.

Remember that every child is unique and develops at his/her own rate – this chart is meant to be a guideline only. It is also important to understand that, depending on the choices families make regarding communication method, use and type of amplification, when the child first started using amplification, etc., you may not see all of the behaviors listed or you may see them emerge later. For example, if you choose an oral-only communication approach, you may not see some of the sign behaviors develop because your child is not being exposed to sign language. If you choose not to use amplification devices on your child, you may not see the speech production or listening skills developing in your child. Finally, if a child does receive an amplification device (hearing aids, cochlear implant), it is suggested that you look at his/her “hearing age” rather than his/her “chronological age”. This is especially important to note if the child is deaf. Because he/she could not hear anything prior to amplification devices, his listening and verbal production skills may occur a little later.

Precursory Stage: Birth to 8 Months

My child can do this! / Communicative Intent
Y N / Uses distinctive cries to indicate different desires
Y N / Maintains eye contact
Y N / Attends to sign and/or gestures
Y N / Participates in turn-taking behavior: Mother coos, then baby coos; baby drops toy and looks at mom, mom picks toy up and baby drops it again
My child can do this! / Signed and VerbalProduction
Y N / “Cooing”- Produces vowel sounds: “ahhhh,”“ohhhh”
Y N / “Babbling”- Produces consonant-vowel sounds: “baaa,” “maaaa;” may start to produce sign babble (hand movements)
Y N / Produces vowel-consonant sounds and plays with pitch of voice: “abba, abba”
Y N / Produces “reduplicated babble:” “bababab,”“agabagaba”
Y N / Imitates facial expressions and uses them to show emotion
My child can do this! / Listening Development
Y N / Detects noises and sounds
Y N / Looks toward the source of a sound
Y N / Detects other peoples’ voices or name when spoken
Y N / Responds when a sound starts and when it stops.
Y N / Can detect the sounds “ahhhh,”“ohhhhh,”“iiiiiiiii,”“ssssssssss,”“shhhhhhh,” “mmmmmmm.”
My child can do this! / Literacy Development
Y N / Mouths or chews on books

Prelinguistic Stage: 6 to 16 Months

My child can do this! / Communicative Intent
Y N / Uses different function words /signs: more, up
Y N / Uses different pitches, stress, and duration of sounds; “No!!!”
Y N / Uses different gestures to convey meaning: points at a toy to mean “I want that”.
Y N / Acknowledges another person with eye contact or action
Y N / Plays games using vocalizations/ gestures: peek-a-boo, soooo big
My child can do this! / Signed and VerbalProduction
Y N / Imitates non-speech oral movements: opening and closing mouth, kissing, imitates signs and sign movements
Y N / Points to people, objects or places
Y N / Will vocalize on request: “Say, ahhhhhhhh”.
Y N / Will use a sign to make a request
Y N / Imitates adult speech varying in loudness, pitch, and duration
Y N / Can produce the vowel sounds that occur in the following words: mama, me, moo, and cat
Y N / Can produce the consonant sounds that occur at the beginning of the following words: bat, mat, pat, nat
Y N / Can imitate the hand shapes for the following signs: One, five, s, l, a, c, and o
Y N / Produces speech-like utterances or sign-like movements and gestures
Y N / Uses a combination of real words and word approximations and / or a combination of real signs and sign approximations
My child can do this! / Listening Development
Y N / Can identify environmental sounds
Y N / Can identify long and short sounds
Y N / Can identify loud and soft sounds
Y N / Can identify high and low pitched sounds
Y N / Can identify speech sounds vs. environmental sounds
Y N / Can identify voices of family members / care givers
My child can do this! / Literacy Development
Y N / Is more interested in the story than in mouthing or chewing the book
Y N / Looks at pictures
Y N / Vocalizes, pats pictures
Y N / Prefers pictures of faces
Y N / Reaches for books

Early Linguistic Stage: 12 to 24 Months

My child can do this! / Communicative Intent
Y N / Uses names (spoken or signed) of family members to get attention or to make a request
Y N / Uses words/signs to announce and/or greet; “bye-bye’
Y N / Uses words/sign approximations with meaning
Y N / Uses sign/words with facial expressions
Y N / Uses two word/sign combinations with meaning
Y N / Responds to routine “who” and “where” questions with a gesture: where’s your nose?
Y N / Asks “What’s that?”
My child can do this! / Signed and VerbalProduction
Y N / Produces vowel sounds like the ones that occur in the following words: bake, bet, big, bull, bun, bend, box
Y N / Produces consonant sounds like the ones at the beginning of the following words: wet, hot
Y N / Can say the names of family members
Y N / Can say the names of common things: ball, cat, milk
Y N / Can produce about ten signs that approximate adult form
Y N / Produces 50-100 words or signs: no, me, mine are common at this stage
Y N / Displays fingerspelling-like activity
Y N / Uses facial expressions in the following ways: head shake to mean “no”, nod to mean “yes”, raises eyebrows when asking yes/no questions
My child can do this! / Listening Development
Y N / Understands common expressions: OK, Come here, sit down
Y N / Can identify words that are similar in length but differ in vowels and consonants: toothbrush vs. mailman
Y N / Can identify words that differ in syllable and stress patterns
Y N / Can identify one syllable words that differ in consonant sounds and vowel sounds: ball vs. key
Y N / Can pick the correct phrase out of a few pre-selected phrases
Y N / Can identify voices of family members and caregivers
My child can do this! / Literacy Development
Y N / Gives book to an adult to read
Y N / Turns board pages of a book
Y N / Turns book right side up
Y N / “Reads” to dolls or stuffed animals
Y N / Delights in reading together with adults
Y N / Makes the same sound for or label picture
Y N / Fills in words in familiar stories
Y N / Points when asked “where’s the …?”
Y N / Protests to changes in familiar story
Y N / Points at pictures with one finger

Linguistic Stage: 20 to 40 Months

My child can do this! / Communicative Intent
Y N / Uses variation in their vocal pitches and facial expressions to ask questions
Y N / Can label actions in pictures using signs/words
Y N / Engages in pretend play that involves objects and a sequence that represents a routine: hooks truck up with trailer, puts baby doll to bed.
Y N / Can relate past experiences in 2 to 3 words/signs
Y N / Can label a construction or a drawing
Y N / Asks “Yes/No” and “Where” questions
Y N / Asks simple “why” and “who” questions
Y N / Answers “What are you doing?” “How many?” and “Whose?” questions
Y N / Uses three word/sign combinations with the intent to communicate something to another person
Y N / Can take turns during a game
My child can do this! / Signed and VerbalProduction
Y N / Can produce consonant sounds like the ones at the beginning of the following words: cot, got, dot, tot, fox, and vote
Y N / Imitates and spontaneously produces the hand shapes that make the letters b, f, o
Y N / Is beginning to expand use of parts of speech such as verb endings like “-ing” or
“-ed”; or repeats a sign to describe a verb: repeats sign for “WALK” to say “Took a long, long walk”
Y N / Approximates the fingerspelling of words like “OK” and “TV”,
or fingerspells commonly used fingerspelled words
Y N / Can produce three or more word/sign combinations
Y N / Imitates 5-7 word/sign sequences including facial expressions
Y N / Uses negatives: words like no, can’t, don’t, not; or uses head shake to convey NO
Y N / Moves sign to indicate action and location: SIT THERE
Y N / Use of plurals emerging by adding ‘s’ when speaking or by signing in one of the following ways: repeating a sign, number and sign, MANY and sign
My child can do this! / Listening Development
Y N / Able to understand simple directions using listening only: e.g. “Get the ball.”
Y N / Understands simple questions about a familiar topic or event
Y N / Identifies single syllable words with similar consonant sounds but different vowels: ball vs. bee, cat vs. key
My child can do this! / Literacy Development
Y N / Recites familiar phrases, sometimes retells whole story
Y N / Coordinates text with picture
Y N / Reads familiar books to self
Y N / Moves finger along text (emerging)
Y N / attends to longer stories
Y N / Moves through books to find favorite pictures
Y N / Can turn paper pages
Y N / Scribbles with a purpose (trying to write or draw something)