Speech and Langauge therapy is provided in the public school to children identified with a speech or langauge delay. Services range from indirect consultation with a classroom teacher to direct pull out services. Children may recieve services to address articulation delays, voice, fluency, expressive and receptive language delays. Many students receive speech or langauge therapy secondary to other diagnosis including Austim and Asperger's Syndrome.
There are common ages at which a child should acquire basic communication skills. These are considered developmental milestones. Listed below are a few key developmental milestones. On my resources and links page you can find several web sites for more in depth information on the acquisition of developmental milestones.
3-4 months-uses vocalizations and coos
4-6 months-develops vocal play
6-11 months-begins to babble and use jargon(babbling that sounds like speech)
12 months-may use some real words for familiar people and objects
12-18 months- to use more word productions
18-24 months-should have a vocabulary burst and may begin to use some two word utterances
24-36 months-should have a vocabulary of around words, m may begin to use 3-4 word combinations, should consistently use 2 word combinations, will begin to ask more questions, speech is about 60-75% intelligible
3-4 years-speech is intelligible most of the time, uses complete sentences, can tell and retell simple stories
5 years-speech is intelligible and most phoneme sounds are present, uses complete sentences of more than 4-5 words
