When Will My Child Start Talking? Guides to Track Development

MED-EL’s A Child’s Journey Developmental Milestones (Birth – 6 Years) provides professionals guidance in understanding typical developmental milestones. Two family-friendly companion pieces have been developed from this resource to help parents and caregivers quickly and easily monitor their child’s progress.

How to Track a Child’s Communication Development

A Child’s Journey – Parent Checklist is a guide designed for parents and caregivers to track their child’s communication development up to six years of age. The poster focuses on three domains of development:

• Auditory / Receptive Language: addresses skills necessary to perceive sound and to understand spoken information.
• Expressive Language: addresses skills necessary to express thoughts, wants, and needs with correct grammar and sentence structure.
• Speech Articulation: addresses skills necessary to produce intelligible speech.

Parents or caregivers can use the form to indicate if a specific milestone is a goal or check the box to indicate the skill has already been acquired. This approach not only makes monitoring progress simple but also facilitates meaningful discussions with hearing professionals to set appropriate communication goals.

Typical Developmental Milestones

A Child’s Journey – Poster is an at-a-glance reference ideal for parents, caregivers, and professionals. It offers a concise overview of typical development from birth to age six across eight domains:

Each domain lists three milestones per age range. Individuals can quickly and easily determine the appropriate communication and communication-related developmental skills expected at each age range.

Both resources, the checklist and the poster, use universal milestones and have been translated into multiple languages.

For children, it is important to keep the whole child in mind since developmental domains are interconnected and influence the acquisition of skills in other areas. Understanding and monitoring the developmental milestones of children with hearing loss is essential for facilitating optimal growth in communication and other related skills. These practical and easy-to-use resources provide valuable information to support children learning to talk.

Both the A Child’s Journey Parent Checklist and A Child’s Journey Poster are available for free download in a range of languages.