Understanding Hearing and Speech Development in Your Child

Finding and understanding your child's hearing and speech development age can be difficult but hopefully this guide will help you determine if there are any speech or hearing issues early.

Child's age Birth to 3 months

Hearing

Does your child listen to voices and speech?
Does your child cry or startle with loud noises or sounds?
Does you child awaken at very loud noises or sounds?

Talking

Does your child gurgle or coo?
Is your child trying to make sounds?

Child's age 3 months to 6 months

Hearing

Does your child turn towards noises or sounds?
Does your child smile or coo when spoken to?
Does your child appear to listen or respond to sounds and noises?
Does your child seem to recognize certain voices?

Talking

Does your child gurgle, babble or make other sounds or noises?
Does your child seem to cry differently for different problems or needs?
Does your child seem to repeat certain sounds and noises?

Child's age 6 months to 9 months

Hearing

Does your child respond to "no" or their own name?
Does your child seem to notice and look around at new sounds or noises?
Does your child turn their head to the where the sounds or noises are coming from?

Talking

Does your child seem to babble sound and mimic parents only not clearly?
Does your child like making lots of different sounds and noises?

Child's 9 months to one year

Hearing

Has your child started to respond to certain sounds and noises, such as "come here".
Does your child turn to you when name is called?
Does your child seem to listen to people talking?

Talking

Has your child learned approximately 2 to 3 words at one years of age or approximately 8 words by one and a half years of age.
Does your child imitate sounds?
Does your child child babble like they are talking to themselves?
Does your child use noises or voice to get attention?

Child's age 1 to 2 years of age

Hearing

Can your child respond to instructions such as "put it on the table" or "put it down"?

Talking

Does your child know approximately 10 to 15 words by two years of age?
Can your child repeat requests such as "help" or "please"?
Does your child ask simple questions such as "go bye bye" or "down doggie"?

Child's age 2 years to 4 years of age

Hearing

Does your child identify sounds with pictures?
Is your child starting to understand the meaning of words such as "sit down" or "put that down"?
Does your child notice certain sounds and immediately known what they are such as doorbell or dog barking?

Talking

Has your child started to use more 2 or 3 word sentences?
Has your child started to ask a lot more questions such as "why" or "what"?
Does your child name things and ask for certain things?
Does your child have a vocabulary of approximately 200 words?

Child's age 4 years to 5 years of age

Hearing

Does your child understand most words or speech in their home?
Does your child answer you easily when called by their name?
Does your child hear whispers?
Do other family members think your child can hear appropriately?

Talking

Does your child sound out most words correctly?
Does your child talk like other people in the family and mimic family speech structure?
Does your child speak as clearly as other children?

If your child has appropriate hearing and talking for their age then you can say that they are developing their hearing, language and speech normally.

If your child shows some delayed speech and hearing issues than it maybe cause for alarm and should be evaluated by their physician. More than likely the physician will do some hearing tests on the child and ask that you work more with your child to improve their speech development.

If your child has some significant developmental problems with hearing and speech development than they should not only be evaluated by their physician but should be also be evaluated by a hearing specialist such as ear, nose and throat doctor but also a speech developmental therapist.

People that can help if you notice any significant speech or hearing problems in your child include:

Community Health Agency
Audiologists
Speech and Language Pathologists

References for this article include:
kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/behavior/not_talk.html
www.asha.org/public/speech/development/parent-stim-activities.htm
wondertime.go.com/learning/child-development/development-speech-communication.html