Component 1: Receptive/Interpretive Language
Standard 1.a: Children attend to, understand, and respond to increasingly complex language.
By the following age ranges, children typically, for example:
- Turn toward familiar voices or sounds
- Recognize more than one tone of voice in adults and respond with body movement and sounds
- Demonstrate a recognition of names of familiar people and favorite objects
- Respond to voices and sounds in the environment
- Can be quieted by a calm, familiar voice
- Become excited upon seeing familiar signs for nursing or feeding (e.g., bottle)
- Startle or cry when there is a loud sound
- Look at what an adult is pointing to and share attention
- Identify familiar people or objects when prompted
- Understand more words than they can say
- Respond appropriately to familiar words, signs, and songs
- Follow simple, one step directions, especially if accompanied by adult gestures and/or signs (e.g., “stop” or “come here”)
- Understand approximately 200 words (receptive language)
- Follow one-step directions with few adult gestures and/or signs (e.g., responding to an adult saying, “Please lift your arms.”)
- Demonstrate an understanding of descriptive words
- Respond appropriately to others’ comments, questions, or stories
- Follow two-step directions that involve familiar experiences and objects (e.g., “Find your shoes and bring them to me.”)
- Demonstrate an understanding of stories, songs, and poems by retelling or relating them to prior knowledge
- Demonstrate an understanding of conversations by responding to questions and prompts
- Demonstrate an understanding of several hundred words in their home language, including those relating to objects, actions, and attributes encountered in both real and symbolic contexts (conversations and texts)
- Distinguish between real and made-up words
- Understand increasingly longer and complex sentences, including sentences with two or more phrases or ideas
- Successfully follow three-step directions (e.g., “Please, would you get the sponge, dampen it with water, and clean your tabletop?”)
- Demonstrate an understanding of complex statements, questions, and stories containing multiple phrases and ideas
- Respond appropriately to a specific and varied vocabulary
- Follow detailed, multistep directions (e.g., “Put away the toys in the correct boxes, wash your hands, then come to the table and find your name.”)
