Before looking at these milestones, you should read this.
By 4 years your child should:
Listening and Understanding
- Hear when you call from another room
- Understand some words for shapes (eg. circle), colours (eg. blue) and family relationships (eg. Grandma)
Speech Sounds and Talking
- Unfamiliar people should be able to understand at least 2/3 (66%) of his speech (even if he still doesn’t use all sounds correctly)
- Use pronouns such as “me”, “mine” and “you”, “mine”, “we”, “they” and “I”
- Use a lot of sentences that contain more than 4 words
- Tell stories using 4 sentences at a time
- Answer “who”, “what” and “where” questions
- Ask “when” and “how” questions
- Say rhyming words eg. dog-log
- Tell you what he thinks will happen next in a story
Social Skills
- Talk about what he’s interested in
- Negotiate with others
- Talk about his feelings
- Feel shame when caught doing the wrong thing.
Play
- Be more creative with make-believe play
- Play board games and card games
- Prefer to play with others than with alone
- Use symbols in their play such as a stick becoming a sword
- Take turns with other children
For more information
- What is a Speech Pathologist?
- Speech Tools Services
- Learning Two Languages by ASHA
- Find a Speech Pathologist with Speech Pathology Australia
