Component 1: Receptive Language
Learning Goal 1.a: Young children attend to, understand, and respond to increasingly complex language.
By 9 months, most children:
- 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 hearing familiar words, such as “nursing” or “bottle”
- Startle or cry when there is a loud sound

By 18 months, most children:
- 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 (e.g., “stop” or “come here”)

By 24 months, most children:
- Understand approximately 200 words (receptive language)
- Follow one-step directions with few adult gestures (e.g., responding to an adult saying, “Please lift your arms.”)

By 36 months, most children:
- 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.”)

By 48 months, most children:
- 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
- Follow directions that involve multiple steps (e.g., “Please, would you get the sponge, dampen it with water, and clean your table top?”)

By 60 months, most children:
- Demonstrate an understanding of complex statements, questions, and stories containing multiple phrases and ideas
- Respond appropriately to a specific and varied vocabulary
- Follow detailed, multi-step directions (e.g., “Put away your toys, wash your hands, and come to the table.”)
