Language Development in 4-Year-Old Boys

Language Milestones

• Although girls seem to develop language more quickly than boys, the advantage is only in terms of months, rather than years. Therefore, pediatricians are looking for all 4-year-old children to have achieved the same language milestones, regardless of gender. By age 4, your son should be able to tell stories with lots of details; speak clearly enough that even a stranger can understand him; use some past-tense irregular verbs, such as ran and swam; use a vocabulary of 200 to 300 words; understand spatial concepts such as "behind" or "next to" and list items that belong in a category, such as animals or vehicles. He should be able to say most sounds correctly, with the exception of l, r, s, v, z, th, ch, and sh. These sounds are more difficult to master, but are usually developed by age 5 or 6.

Gender Differences in Language Learning

• An interesting study at Georgetown University Medical Center found that there is a difference in how boys and girls reach the language milestones. A 4-year-old girl tends to acquire language through memorizing words and the associations between them, whereas boys will rely on the system of rules that govern language. For example, a common mistake for a 4-year-old is to put the verb "hold" into the past tense by saying "holded." Researchers found that girls do this because they have memorized a rhyming pattern between "fold" and "hold" and applied this rhyming pattern to the past tense: folded, holded. A 4-year-old boy, on the other hand, makes the same grammar mistake by applying the language rule of adding an "-ed" ending to the verb. So whereas boys and girls should be in about the same place developmentally by age 4, their brains are wired very differently for arriving there.

Differences in Expression

• A 4-year-old boy, even when he has reached his language milestones, will still communicate differently from girls, which often gives the appearance that he is lagging behind. There are several factors at work here. First, boys tend to focus more on physical play, exploring their environment by running, jumping and touching. Girls use verbal expression to explore their surroundings. Boys also use more nonverbal sounds, such as animal or motor noises, in play, whereas girls will make verbally communicative sounds almost exclusively.

Language Delays

• When a boy is significantly behind his age group in reaching language milestones, it is considered to be a language delay. Language delays are three to four times more common in boys than in girls. Delays are usually evident long before the child&'s fourth birthday, and there are a number of possible causes: autism, childhood apraxia (a nervous system disorder), hearing disorders and learning disabilities, to name a few. While many boys are simply late language bloomers and will catch up by the time they reach school age, if you have any concerns about your 4-year-old&'s language development, you should ask your pediatrician about speech therapy.

Help for Language Delays

• The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association recommends that if you have any concerns about your son&'s language development, you contact a board-certified speech-language pathologist. These specialists can help children develop their communication abilities, as well as correct speech, language and voice disorders. Their services include prevention, identification, evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation. With early intervention, development delays in language can often be corrected.