Important Milestones: By the End of Three Years (36 months)
Social
• Notices peers in a group and engages in social interactions
• Participates in and enjoys group activities
• Begins to engage in simple "make believe", like house
• Imitates adults and playmates
• Spontaneously shows affection for familiar playmates
• Can take turns in games
• Understands concept of "mine" and "his/hers"
Emotional
• Expresses affection openly
• Expresses a wide range of emotions
• Separates easily from parents
• Objects to major changes in routine
Cognitive
• Makes mechanical toys work
• Matches an real life object in her hand or the room to a picture in a book
• Plays make-believe with dolls, animals, and people
• Sorts objects by shape and color
• Completes puzzles with three or four pieces
• Understands concept of "two"
Speech Sounds (Articulation)
•Uses more early developing sounds in speech repetoire
•Speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time
• About 75% intelligible
​
Language
• Follows a two- or three-part command
• Recognizes and identifies almost all common objects and pictures
• Understands most sentences
• Understands placement in space ("on," "in," "under")
• Uses 4- to 5-word sentences
• Knows her/his name, age, and sex
• Uses pronouns (I, you, me, we, they) and some plurals (cars, dogs, cats)
Movement
• Climbs well
• Walks up and down stairs, alternating feet (one foot per stair step)
• Kicks ball
• Runs easily
• Pedals tricycle
• Bends over easily without falling
Hand and Finger Skills
• Makes up-and-down, side-to-side, and circular lines with pencil or crayon
• Turns book pages one at a time
• Builds a tower of more than six blocks
• Holds a pencil in writing position
• Screws and unscrews jar lids, nuts, and bolts
• Turns rotating handles
Developmental Health Watch
• Frequent falling and difficulty with stairs
• Persistent drooling or very unclear speech
• Cannot build a tower of more than four blocks
• Difficulty manipulating small objects
• Cannot copy a circle by age 3
• Cannot communicate in short phrases
• No involvement in "pretend" play
• Does not understand simple instructions
​
For more information see content sources:
