Social Communication Benchmarks 

Cultural and linguistic factors may influence appropriateness and/or relevance of benchmarks. Variability may exist in the acquisition of milestones due to a number of factors (e.g., linguistic diversity and neurodiversity).

Birth to 12 Months

• prefers looking at human face and eyes
• prefers listening to human voice
• looks for the source of voice
• differentiates between tones of voice (e.g., angry, friendly)
• smiles back at the caregiver
• follows the caregiver’s gaze
• participates in preverbal vocal turn-taking with the caregiver
• vocalizes to get attention
• demonstrates joint attention skills (sharing attention)
• uses gestures to make requests and direct attention
• plays simple interactive games, such as peekaboo
• seeks comfort or a safe haven from the caregiver
• expresses feelings
• develops object permanence
• discriminates facial expressions
• fears strangers
• develops relational memory (faces/voices)
• changes behavior to achieve a goal
• imitates gestures or oral movements

12–18 Months

• develops a range of communicative intentions (e.g., requesting, protesting, commenting)
• brings objects to show caregivers
• requests by pointing and vocalizing
• solicits attention vocally
• practices vocal inflection
• says “bye” and other ritualized words
• protests by shaking head and/or saying “no”
• supplements gestures with verbal language
• is aware of the social value of speech
• responds to others’ speech with eye contact
• demonstrates sympathy, empathy, and sharing nonverbally
• shows joy, fear, and anger
• displays an increase in autonomy
• resists control
• co-regulates interactions

18–24 Months

• uses single words to express intention
• uses single and paired words to command, indicate possession, express problems, and gain attention
• uses I, me, you, my, and mine
• participates in verbal turn-taking with a limited number of turns
• demonstrates simple topic control
• interrupts at syntactic junctures or in response to prosodic cues
• demonstrates secure or insecure attachment pattern
• exhibits emotion and behavioral regulation
• demonstrates an increase in autonomy
• develops emerging implicit perceptual access reasoning
• shows daily routine schemes in play

24–36 Months

• engages in short dialogues
• verbally introduces and changes topic
• expresses emotion
• begins to use language in an imaginative way
• relates own experiences
• begins to provide descriptive details to enhance listener understanding
• uses attention-getting words
• clarifies and asks for clarification
• uses some politeness terms or markers
• begins to demonstrate some adaptation of speech to different listeners
• can deceive and detect deception
• understands that others may feel differently than oneself
• follows rules
• shows common but not daily schemes in play (e.g., doctor, shopping)
• uses embedded requests

3–4 Years

• engages in longer dialogues
• anticipates next turn at talking
• terminates conversation; appropriately role-plays
• uses fillers—such as “yeah” and “okay”— to acknowledge a partner’s message
• begins code-switching and uses simpler language when talking to very young children
• uses more elliptical responses, such as “Mommy went home, I didn’t”
• requests permission
• begins using language for fantasies, jokes, and teasing
• makes conversational repairs when not understood and corrects others
• infers information from a story and infers indirect meanings
• uses primitive narratives—events follow from the central core
• uses inferences in stories

4–5 Years

• uses indirect requests; correctly uses deictic terms (e.g., this, that, here, there)
• uses twice as many effective utterances as 3-year-olds to discuss emotions and feelings
• uses narrative development characterized by unfocused chains—stories have a sequence of events but no central character or theme
• develops basic understanding of theory of mind, including judgment that another person may have a belief that differs from the truth
• shifts topics rapidly
• shows fantasy schemes in play
• understands that beliefs can result in predictable emotions
• understands that someone may feel the same way when experiencing a similar event
• uses comissives/promises

School-Age Years (6–12 Years)

• demonstrates increased understanding of theory of mind (predicting what one person is thinking about what another person is thinking or feeling; understands strategies to hide deceit, recognizes sarcasm)
• provides assistance and demonstrates altruism
• uses narrative development characterized by causally sequenced events using “story grammar”
• demonstrates improved conversational skills (e.g., topic maintenance, repair, and increased number of turns)
• extends topic of conversation
• demonstrates refined social conventions
• demonstrates metapragmatic skills—child is able to think about social and conversational rules
• uses language for varied functions, including persuading and advancing one’s opinion
• understands that people can feel multiple emotions at the same time
• practices increased self-regulation
• uses indirect requests
• uses inferential language
• uses ambiguous language (figurative)
• uses sarcasm
• uses double meanings (puns)

Older Adolescence Into Adulthood

• uses verbal and nonverbal language competently and flexibly
• navigates multiple registers flexibly and fluidly
• demonstrates refined understanding and use of nonverbal behavior
• can explain idioms and nuanced figurative language
• develops close friendships and romantic relationships
• continues to develop empathy

Related Research

Adams, C. (2002). Practitioner review: The assessment of pragmatics. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43(8), 973–987. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-7610.00226

Gard, A., Gilman, L., & Gorman, J. (1993). Speech and language development chart (2nd ed.). Pro-Ed.

Hwa-Froelich, D. A. (in press). Social communication development and disorders (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis.

Russel, R. L. (2007). Social communication impairments: Pragmatics. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 54(3), 483–506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2007.02.016

Wellman, H. M., Fang, F., & Peterson, C. C. (2011). Sequential progressions in a theory-of-mind scale: Longitudinal perspectives. Child Development, 82(3), 780–792. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01583.x

Westby, C., & Robinson, L. (2014). A developmental perspective for promoting theory of mind. Topics in Language Disorders, 34(4), 362–382. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000035