- follows directions involving 3 or more steps (e.g. "First get some paper, then draw a picture, last give it to Mom")

- uses adult-type grammar

- tells stories with a clear beginning, middle and end

- talks to try to solve problems with adults and other children

- demonstrates increasingly complex imaginative play

- understood by strangers almost all of the time

- able to generate simple rhymes (e.g. "cat-bat")

- matches some letters with their sounds (e.g. "letter T says 'tuh')