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English Language Milestones 

for Children Adopted Between 13-18 months of Age

Data reprinted from Glennen, S. & Masters, M. G. (2002). Typical and atypical language development in infants and toddlers adopted from Eastern Europe.  American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, ??,  pp-pp.   

 
Child's Current Age

 

 N

Expressive Vocabulary Words

  

Average Length of 3 Longest Sentences in Morphemes   

  

Use of 4 Grammar Markers
    Mean +/- 1 St Dev Range Mean +/- 1 St Dev Range Mean +/- 1 St Dev

18 - 21 Months

10

       16.30

  0.00 -    38.76

      0 -    69

       0.63

  0.11 –   1.15

     0 –    1.00

       0.00

 0.00 -    0.00

22 - 24 Months

9

       67.63

    8.6 -  126.66

     11 - 179

       1.60

  0.71 –   2.49

 1.00 –   3.00

       0.13

 0.00 -    0.48

25 - 27 Months

9

       60.89

  12.25–109.53

       4 - 162

       1.81

  0.67–    2.95

 1.00 –   4.00

       0.33

 0.00 -    1.04

28 - 30 Months

10

     110.50

  45.14-175.86

    12 -  203

       2.87

  1.07 -   4.67

 1.00 –   5.00

       1.00

 0.00 -    2.33

31 - 33 Months

12

     187.83

  87.55-288.11

    28 -  297

       4.81

  1.06 –  8.56

 1.00 – 11.00

       1.58

 0.00 -    3.46

34 - 36 Months

12

     229.58

157.19-301.97

    64 – 305

       4.89

  3.57 -   6.21

 3.00 –   6.33

       2.17

 0.37 -    3.97

37 - 40 Months

 5

     263.20

151.65 - 310*

    96 – 310*

       9.53

  6.34 - 12.72

 4.66 – 13.33

       3.40

 2.06 -  4.00*

 

Information is based on 29 children adopted from Eastern Europe.  N= number of children (from the total of 29) who provided information within each Current Age group.  Expressive Vocabulary refers to the number of vocabulary words indicated by parents on the Language Development Survey (LDS) (Rescorla, 1989).  *310 is the maximum possible score on the LDS.  Sentence Length is the average length of each child’s three longest utterances counted in morphemes.  Use of Four Grammatical Morphemes refers to the child’s expressive use of the following bound morphemes: present progressive “ing,” past tense “ed,” possessive “’s,” and plurals.  * 4.0 is the maximum score for Grammatical Morphemes.  

What to Expect and When to Get Concerned

What is remarkable for children adopted at this age is how quickly their English language skills "take off."  These children begin to use first words in English by 20-22 months of age.  By 24 months of age, the average internationally adopted child has a vocabulary of over 50 words and is beginning to put 2-word sentences together.  This is a language cut-off that professionals use to determine which English speaking 2 year olds have language delays.  Any child in this age group who does not begin to rapidly learn English vocabulary words within the first few months of adoption and is not producing 50 words or two-word phrases by 24 months should be considered language delayed.  When children do not meet these milestones, parents should contact the early intervention program in their school district or seek services from a private speech language pathologist who specializes in working with infants and toddlers.  More information on these services is available on the Infant Toddler web page. 

Although English language skills emerge quickly, children adopted at older ages need more time to  fully catch up.  This does not mean that older adopted toddlers have more language problems, it is a function of the exponential growth in language that occurs.  In order to fully catch up, children adopted at older ages need to learn more language and learn it faster than children adopted at younger ages.  Parents reported that language comprehension and expression skills did not fall within normal English language levels until the children were 37-40 months old.  Even then, the children tended to fall on the low side of the average range.  What this means is that children adopted between 13-18 months of age can be assessed using tests developed for  English speaking children after they turn 3 years old.  However children will have test scores on the low side of the average range and test results should be interpreted cautiously, especially if the scores fall within what professionals call "borderline to upper mild" ranges.  

Towson University
Sharon Glennen, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders
Towson University
Towson, MD 21252
Last Modified 7/07/02