4 Year Milestones

Language Development is the process by which children come to understand and communicate language during early childhood.  From birth to age five, children develop language at a very rapid pace.  The stages of language development for humans are universal, however the age and the rate at which a child reaches each developmental milestone can vary greatly among children.  A child’s development should not be compared to that of other individual children but rather be compared to norms.  Generally girls develop language at a faster rate than boys.  More than any other aspect of development, language development reflects the growth and maturation of the child’s brain.  For a child after the age of five it becomes much more difficult to learn language.  Early Intervention is critical. A typically developing child usually develops receptive language development (the ability to understand language) faster than expressive language (ability to communicate).

If your child is missing any of the items in the appropriate age milestones, please complete the “Referral Form” or contact us. Early intervention is vital to your child’s speech and language development.

Social/ Emotional

• Enjoys doing new things
• Plays “mom” and “dad”
• Is more and more creative with make believe play
• Would rather play with other children than by himself
• Cooperates with other children
• Often can’t tell what’s real and what’s make believe
• Talks about what they like and is interested in

Cognitive (Learning, Thinking, and Problem-solving)

• Knows names, colors, and some numbers
• Understands the idea of counting
• Starts to understand time
• Remembers parts of a story
• Understands the idea of “same” and “different”
• Draws a person with 2 to 4 body parts
• Uses scissors
• Starts to copy capital letters
• Names four colors
• Plays board and card games
• Tells what they think is going to happen next in a book

Movement/ Physical Development

• Hops and stands on one foot up to 2 seconds
• Catches a bounced ball most of the time
• Pours, cuts with supervision, and mashes own food