Birth to 3 months
Will startle to loud noises or sounds, quiets or smiles when talked to, seems to recognize your voice, can may quiet if crying
4 to 6 months
Moves eyes towards sounds and can hear inflection in voices, pays attention to toys that make sounds and music
7 month to 1 year
Turns in direction of sounds, looks where someone is pointing, will turn when name is said, begins to understand common items and people, will begin to play games, and listens to music and stories
Birth to 3 months
Makes cooing sounds, cries for different reasons and needs, smiles at others
4 to 6 months
Coos and babbles when playing alone or with others, makes speech-like babble (pa, ba, and mi), giggles/laughs, makes different sounds for when upset or happy
7 months to 1 year
Babbles long strings of sounds (mimi, upup, baba), uses sounds and gestures to get and/or keep attention, points to objects and shows them to others, begins to wave bye, reach for "up," and shaking head "no." imitates different speech sounds, can say 1 or 2 words.
Points to a few body parts when asked about them, can follow 1-part directions, responds to simple questions, listens to simple stories, songs, and rhymes, and points to pictures in a book when naming them.
Uses a lot of new words, use of p, b, m, h, and w, in words, starts to name pictures in books, asks questions ("what/who/where is that?"), puts 2 words together
Can understand opposites (go-stop, big-little), follows 2-part directions, and begins to understand new words quickly
Has a word for almost everything, can talk about things that are not in the same room as them, uses k, g, f, t, d, and n in words, can use location words (on, under, in), uses two- or three- words to talk about/ask for things, individuals close to the child can understand them, asks "why," can put up to 3 words together to talk about things
Responds when called from different rooms, can understand some words for colors, shapes, and family
Answers simple questions pertaining to the "w" words (who/what/where), says rhyming words, begins to use pronouns and plural words, most people can understand child, asks when and how questions, put up to 4 words together, can talk about what happened during the day
Understands words used with order (first, next, and last), time (yesterday, today, and tomorrow), follows longer directions and classroom directions, hears and understands most of what they hear at home/school
Says all speech sounds in words (but may make mistakes on sounds that are harder to say: l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, and th), responds to "what did you say?", can talk fluently without repeating sounds or words, names letters and numbers, can use sentences that have more than one action word, tell short stories and keep conversations going, talks in different ways depending on who they are around and where they are
During a child's first five years of life, they are exposed to an unending list of people, places, foods, and things. Their brains are continuously taking statistics of the world around them while they continue to dive head-first into knowledge. "Parental behavior during a child’s first 5 years of life is critical for the development of important social and cognitive outcomes in children.[16]" The people children interact with the most and learn from the most are their parents, unknowingly, children pick up on adults little habits or ways they speak. "The interactions and experiences that children have in the home and family setting provide a framework for how the child will interpret his or her world and give meaning to culturally framed events.[16]"
Children, from birth are relationship-seeking beings, during this time of development, children are actively seeking and wanting to interact with those around them, even if the language levels are different. They reach out to get responses from those around them, looking for signals of distress/pleasure as they try to help manage the pace, flow, and intensity of interactions. "Through connected interaction with parents, children appear to develop an empathic socioemotional orientation that serves as a foundation for interpreting social situations and responding more prosocially to age-mates and teachers.[16]" This helps the children learn to relate and accept those around them along with helping them understand and accept themselves. As the child grows and begins to develop language, this is where the parents start to play a critical role. The influence parents have on children's early-language learning starts with commenting, mimicking, and expanding on their child's play schemes and speech patterns.
During this time in a child's development, it is also important that the parents try to expand on and work on their child's speech to help give the child a prompt to want to talk. Through commenting on a child's speech, it prompts the developing child to continue the conversation and want to add onto the topic. This also works with mimicking. In mimicking or repeating a child's speech helps the child's brain take statistics on what certain words sound like and the grammatical aspect of a sentence, without them even realizing it. These two techniques help later on when the child is learning to talking as they move through the developmental stages of speech.
Above, both videos give insight into why parent-child interactions during development are important. The video on the left provides more information on how these interactions help and what they continue to build while the child grows older. The video on the right is more so an example of what a positive parent-child conversation can look like. This video shows examples of commenting and expanding on the child's storytelling.