The rate of children's speech and language development can vary, depending on the child. Some children will reach certain developmental milestones quicker than others, and some children will be slow to develop certain speech and language skills compared to their peers, even if there are no related problems. This information sheet is just a general guideline to the stages of development, and many experts vary considerably on what they believe to be the normal stages of development.

You will see that many skills mentioned in the different age grouped sections are repeated over several age groups as children are all different and some take longer to develop these abilities. So just use this chart as a very general guideline rather than read too much into it. There may also be some difference between boys and girls and when they develop certain skills.

To try and make this information easier to read we have created a made-up child called Bill. Bill was lucky, he had a childhood free of any illness or accidents and he had pro-active parents who played with him and gave him lots of quality 1:1 attention.

Each age group in the Milestones section covers five specific areas of development.

• Speech and Auditory Awareness

• Expressive Language and Semantics

• Social use of Language (use and pragmatics)

• Receptive language (comprehension, perceiving and understanding) and cognition

• Gross and fine motor skill

We have divided the milestones into stages, and you can read about the aspects of development at each stage of growth through early childhood by accessing the links below.

0 – 12 months

12 - 18 months

18 - 24 months

24 - 30 months

30 - 36 months

36 - 48 months

48 - 60 months

60 – 72 months

72 months +