Expressive Language Disorder
Expressive language refers to the skills of being precise, complete and clear when expressing thoughts and feelings, answering questions, relating events, and carrying on a conversation.
– Word retrieval difficulties
– Dysnomia (misnaming items)
– Difficulty acquiring the rules of grammar
– Difficulty in verb tense changes
– Difficulty in word meaning
Milestones of Language Development
-
Birth
- Listens to speech
- Startles or cries at noises -
0–3 Months
- Turns to you when you speak
- Smiles when spoken to
- Recognizes your voice and quiets down if crying
- Can coo and goo
- Cries differently for different needs -
4–6 months
- Responds to no
- Looks around for the source of a new sound
- Babbles
- Imitates different speech sounds -
7 months–1 year
- Recognizes words for common items
- Begins to respond to requests (Come here)
- Has one or two words
- Uses speech or non-crying sounds to gain attention -
1–2 years
- Understands a variety of words and should be using a few single words.
- Points to pictures in a book when named
- Points to a few body parts
- Follows simple commands
- By age two, words should be combined into two and three-word phrases and sentences. -
2–3 years
- Understands differences in some opposites
- Follows two requests
- Has a word for almost everything
- Uses 2 – 3 word sentences -
3–4 years
- Answers simple who, what, where and why questions
- Uses sentences of 4 or more words in length -
4–5 years
- Pays attention to a story and answers simple questions about it
- Communicates easily with children and adults
- Uses the same grammar as the rest of the family