SPEECH, LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
GIVING CHILDREN THE BEST POSSIBLE START IN LIFE
NHS EDUCATION FOR SCOTLAND
EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE (USE) DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
Children start to use babbled sounds before moving on to using single words and then joining words together into short phrases and then sentences.
Being able to use words and sentences lets children express their wants and needs and to share their thoughts and feelings.
1
YEAR
- Uses 10 - 20 single words
- Uses lots of jargon/nonsense speech
- Uses 50 words, including action words e.g. run, jump
- Uses two words together, e.g. ‘daddy car’
2
YEARS
- Uses three to four word sentences.
- Uses ‘small’ words like ‘the’ and ‘is’
3-4
YEARS
- Can hold a simple conversation.
- Using 4000-5000 words.
- Uses longer, well formed sentences and links sentences together with ‘and’ and ‘because’
- Describes events that have happened
- Able to retell short stories
4-5
YEARS
DOWNLOAD IN PDF FORMAT
NHS Education for Scotland
102 Westport
Edinburgh
EH3 9DN
www.nes.scot.nhs.uk
OTHER LINKS
- NES website
- The Portal
© NHS Education for Scotland 2018. You can copy or reproduce the information in this document for use within NHSScotland and for non-commercial educational purposes. Use of this document for commercial purposes is permitted only with the written permission of NES.