How many words does a child know at 36 months

3 Year Old Milestones for Speech and Language -Checklist — Toddler Talk

Speech & Language Milestones24 - 36 Months

Feb 2

Written By Stephanie Keffer

• How many words should 3 year olds say?

• What 3 year olds understand?

• And discover some 3 year old activities for speech and language that you can do at home?

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By the time children are 3 years old (36 months), they will have far more words than anyone could count. Tracking vocabulary is a great way to measure growth for children who say less than a few hundred words.  

But 3 year olds can say more than 500 words, and you’ll probably find it easier to listen for changes in their grammar to realize their growth in language expression. 

Perhaps the most noticeable change is that 3 year olds start to speak in longer and longer sentences. Listen to the sentences your 3 year old is saying and write down some of the longest sentences they say. You can do this again in a few weeks to a month and notice that their sentences are getting longer and longer!

Talking in longer sentences allows 3 year olds to begin telling stories about things that happened. It is always exciting to hear about your little one’s day! 

3 year olds also begin to use endings on verbs, like walked and walking to talk about things that happened in the past versus things that are happening right now. 

If you are interested in working on some of these specific grammatical skills with your child, you can find lessons and specific activity guides for 2 and 3 year old children in our Toddler Talk Program which offers a free toddler assessment and customized lesson plans.

The short answer is, “Probably not.” But it’s definitely worth investigating further as there are different types of stuttering. You can read more about stuttering in young children here to learn about the differences between developmental stuttering and stuttering treated by speech therapists.

By the time toddlers turn 3 years old (36 months), they have learned the meaning of over 3,000 words!

This means that 3 year olds will be able to understand many things. They have learned routines and can anticipate what might happen based on circumstances. They understand the words for the things they see everyday and some words for things they have seen only a few times. 3 year olds can answer questions and follow directions most of the time. 

Now that children can understand the words for things around them, it is a good time to begin to introduce academic concepts.  

Because they have the vocabulary they need to function without frustration, we can begin to add on extra. 

After 3 years old when children can say about 500 words and understand more than 3,000 you can begin to teach concepts like early phonics, colors, and counting.

Once children are 3 years old (in the United States), they will be able to qualify through speech therapy through the school district. They do not have to be in preschool in order to access school-based speech therapy. 

If you have public insurance, you might be eligible for speech therapy at a local speech therapy office until your child gets into school based speech therapy. 

If you have private insurance, call the number on the back of your insurance card or visit your insurers website to learn more about what coverage your child is eligible for. Insurance plans vary greatly, so I find it’s best to ask the experts (even if it means being on hold!). 

The communication milestones to look out for by 36 months.

How does your toddler "tell" you things?

▢ Says more words than you can count; Seems to have a word for just about everything

▢ Has little conversations with you and their friends

▢ Puts endings on verbs to talk about the past - walked and watched

▢ Talks in sentences

▢ Asks questions and tells you what they want, need, think, and feel

▢ My child has started to tell stories about things that happened to them

What words does your toddler know?

▢ Answers many different “wh” questions: who, what, where, what's happening

▢ Answers many different yes or no questions

▢ Follows directions without your help most of the time (you may have to help if they don’t want to do it, but they understand what you asked)

▢ Listens and responds to what other kids are saying

▢ Continues to learn the meaning of new words when introduced to new things

▢ Pronounces most Consonant Sounds: P, B, T, D, K, G, M, N, H, W, F, V, S, Z, Ch, J

▢ Vowel Sounds: Is able to pronounce all the vowel sounds

▢ You can understand almost everything they say, and other people can understand them most of the time as well

▢ Notices when other people don't understand what they've said

How does your little one play and interact with others?

▢ My child enjoys having conversations with familiar children and adults

▢ Stays on topic in conversation often

▢ Has fun playing with other children with adult support for sharing toys

▢ Understands other people's tone of voice

▢ Makes jokes and thinks other people's age appropriate jokes are funny

Grow Your Child’s Language Waiting in Line

Waiting is admittedly one of my least favorite things to do. But as you are waiting in line at the grocery store or in the carpool line at school with your toddler, you can use this otherwise wasted time to practice speech and language skills. 

Now that your child is 3, we expect them to be entertained by conversation with you and their friends. So as long as they are in a good mood and you are talking about something they like and know about, they will have fun talking with you for at least a few minutes. 

Ask your toddler questions about what they would like to do in the future or about things that happened in the past. It’s a good idea to ask questions with answers you already know, so you can help them as they are learning. 

You can also talk about the things that you see as you are waiting. Commenting on what other people are doing, and what things you see, hear, and smell. 

When waiting with your toddler, look for them to:

▢ Ask and answer questions

▢ Talk in sentences about what they are seeing while on your walk

▢ Have fun (at least for a few minutes) just having a conversation with you (as long as their in a good mood)

▢ Tell simple stories about things that happened

• By 36 months it’s expected that:

  • children are saying far more words than you are able to count

  • you can understand what a child is saying almost always

  • children are able to tell you a simple story about what happened to them

  • children understand new words easily and they are able to answer many questions

• By 3 years old, it’s expected that children’s speech is clear to their parents about 75-100% of the time. In speech therapy we refer to how “clear” a child’s speech is as speech intelligibility.

  You can learn more about speech intelligibility here.

Written By: Stephanie Keffer, MS CCC-SLP

© 2020-2022. Stephanie Keffer, MS CCC-SLP. All Rights Reserved.

 The content offered on ToddlerTalk.com is for informational purposes only. Toddler Talk is not engaged in rendering professional advice, whether medical or otherwise, to individual users or their children or families. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor, speech language pathologist, or other health professional. By accessing the content on ToddlerTalk.com, you acknowledge and agree that you are accepting the responsibility for your child’s health and well-being. In return for providing you with information related to home speech and language practice, you waive any claims that you or your child may have as a result of utilizing the content on ToddlerTalk. com.

36 Month Olds3 Year OldsSpeech and Language MilestonesToddler Language MilestonesToddler Speech Milestones

Stephanie Keffer

Number of Words in a Child's Vocabulary

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First, I would like to thank you for all you do for us moms who are lacking support in the autism community, and thank you for providing tons of information and resources to help our bright children. I myself benefited so much from watching your videos and reading your daily emails. I cannot stress enough how much all this information helped my toddler. Of course, getting an autism diagnosis for your child is extremely scary (she was diagnosed at 2 years old) and I was depressed and did not know what autism was, how it affected children, and how to teach children struggling with this condition. However, your videos helped me to find light in my child and now I am your biggest fan! I rewatch your videos over and over again to make sure I didn't miss anything that can help my daughter. I even purchase two books- Autism workbook and Teach me to Play. My toddler was completely non-verbal, she didn't know how to imitate, no eye contact, no pointing.. you name it she didn't have any skills and I didn't know how to teach her! And that is until I discover ed You- my toddlers (Fairy: smiling_face_with_3_hearts:)!

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Thank you so much for all your hard work and publishing books! Our 17-month-old toddler suddenly exploded into speaking and imitating everybody's gestures and sounds, just a week or two after we 'completed' all activities that are listed under 11 pre-linguistic skills! Your method really works!"

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I love your work! I am a professor of early childhood special education and a speech language pathologist! I have worked to help children learn to communicate and I know how valuable the information you share is for both early interventionists and pediatric speech language pathologists!

Thank you for systematically organizing and explaining essential steps for young children to learn and develop. You are having a great impact on our profession, the ECE profession and families!"

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What an inspiration!

Thank you for helping me be a better Developmental Therapist. I often listen to your podcasts which help me help families.

Your enthusiasm, professionalism and
the sheer volume of information is so great.

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I just wanted you to know I appreciate you."

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Thank you for your generosity in sharing so much knowledge in such a clear and enthusiastic way.

As a retired audiologist with a fabulous and language delayed grandson, I used your podcasts and outstanding publication, The Autism Workbook, to inspire and guide me over the past year.

It works!! He went from barely verbal, no gestures, didn't respond to his name etc etc to a verbal, social, curious, ready to imitate anything, fill in the blanks on familiar "set" speech, generate his own totally appropriate and mostly understandable sentences...not just short phrases anymore... full little paragraphs...about imaginary things, what he did during the day, what he wants. True communication!

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I received your book (The Autism Workbook) yesterday and it is absolutely amazing! As I evaluate young children (0-3) for developmental delays and write plans for them with their parents, there are a ton of ideas that are ready to use. Others that reinforce what I have been doing, and saying, all along. Thank you so, so much for writing this incredible book and pulling everything together in one place!"

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Girl…my son is 3 years old, and he NEVER asks for something using words. We were playing “Get Your Belly” (from Teach Me to Play WITH You), and after several times, he laughed and screamed "BEWIEEE!!!"  It was a hoot. And I can't believe he said it! I have played with him like this before, but this time I took your advice and acted CRAZY!! I will act like a total lunatic if it will get him to talk to me!  Now I can give him "the look" from across the room, and he will say it. That manual is so amazingly practical, and it is a GODSEND right now! Thank you SO MUCH!”

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Thank you so much, endlessly."

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Stages of speech development in a child

The first six months

By the end of 1 month of life, a healthy infant already responds to treatment: stops crying, focuses on an adult. At 3 months , when communicating with an adult, the baby becomes animated, “gurgles”. Vowel sounds predominate, as well as consonants g, k, n.

At 5 months the baby reacts to the direction of the sound, “sings”, changing the intonation of the voice. By 6 months the first syllable "ba" or "ma" appears. There is an initial understanding of the addressed speech: the child listens to the voice of an adult, recognizes familiar voices.

Until the year

In 8 months babble occurs, i.e. repetition of the same syllables: “ba-ba”, “yes-yes”, “pa-pa”, etc. In speech, sounds are used: p, b, m, g, k, e, a. By 10 months , the baby uses at least 1-2 “babble words” in communication (such as “lyalya”, “woman”).

In 1 year the child already uses 3-4 "babble words", understands individual words, correlates them with specific objects. Understands simple instructions accompanied by gestures (“kiss mom”, “where is dad?”, “give me a pen”, “no”). The first meaningful words in a baby appear by the end of the first year of life. The period from one to three years is characterized by a rapid increase in vocabulary in children. This is due to the fact that the activity of the child becomes more complex and diverse. He gets acquainted with the various properties of objects, establishes the simplest connections between them, generalizes according to similar features. However, the ability to understand the generalized meaning of words is not yet sufficiently developed.

After a year

1 year 3 months . Vocabulary increases to 6 words, the child understands a simple instruction without a gesture, shows familiar words in the picture.

1 year 6 months . Shows one of the parts of the body, vocabulary 7-20 words.

1 year 9 months . Shows three parts of the body, uses a two-word phrase (“Mom, di!”, “Give me lala”). Vocabulary 20 words.

Second year of development

2 years . The child shows five parts of the body, has a vocabulary of at least 50 words; understands and correctly follows the two-step instruction (“go to the kitchen and fetch a cup”), correctly uses the pronouns I, you, me. By the age of two, the child already learns the sounds: p, b, m, f, c, t, d, n, k, g, x. Whistling sounds (s, s, c), hissing (w, w, h, u) and sonorous (p, l) he usually skips or replaces.

2 years 6 months . The child understands the designation of actions in different situations (“show who is sitting, who is sleeping”), the meaning of prepositions in a familiar specific situation (“what are you sitting on?”). Pronounces sounds correctly: s, z, l, repeats two numbers in the correct sequence, has the concept of “one”.

After two - not too late

3 years . Vocabulary 250-700 words, the child uses sentences of five to eight words, has mastered the plural of words; gives his name, gender and age; understands the meaning of simple prepositions - performs tasks like “put the cube under the cup”, uses simple prepositions and conjunctions in the sentence because, if, when. The kid understands the read short stories and fairy tales.

4 years . Complex sentences are already found in speech, prepositions are used for, before, instead of, after, unions what, where, how much. Vocabulary 1500-2000 words. The child correctly pronounces hissing sounds w, w, h, u, as well as the sound c. The softened pronunciation of consonants disappears.

5 years . Vocabulary increases to 2500-3000. In words, there are no more gaps, permutations of sounds and syllables. All parts of speech are used in the sentence. The child masters all the sounds of the native language and uses them correctly in speech; actively uses generalizing words ("clothes", "animals").

7 years . The dictionary is increased to 3500 words, it actively accumulates figurative words and expressions, stable phrases (neither light nor dawn, hastily, etc.) Grammar rules are assimilated. The child actively tries to explain the meaning of words, reflects on the gender of nouns. Thus, language and speech attention, memory, logical thinking and other psychological prerequisites for the further development of the child and his successful schooling develop.

Sources

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• Venker CE. , McDaniel J., Yasick M. Speech-Language Pathologists' Ratings of Telegraphic Versus Grammatical Utterances: A Survey Study. // J Speech Lang Hear Res - 2020 - Vol63 - N7 - p.2271-2280; PMID:32579870
• Skovlund E., Selmer R., Skurtveit S., Brandlistuen RE., Handal M. In utero exposure to analgesic opioids and language development in 5-year old children. // Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf - 2020 - Vol29 - N6 - p.736-744; PMID:32383248
• Thistle JJ., Wilkinson KM. Speech-Language pathologists' decisions when designing an aided AAC display for a compilation case study of a beginning communicator. // Disabil Rehabil Assist Technol - 2020 - Vol - NNULL - p.1-9; PMID:32228265
• Babatsouli E. Correlation between the measure for cluster proximity (MCP) and the percentage of consonants correct (PCC). // Clin Linguist Phon - 2021 - Vol35 - N1 - p.65-83; PMID:32223449
• Macari S., Milgramm A., Reed J., Shic F., Powell KK., Macris D., Chawarska K. Context-Specific Dyadic Attention Vulnerabilities During the First Year in Infants Later Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder. // J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry - 2021 - Vol60 - N1 - p.166-175; PMID:32061926