Children develop skills at different rates, but by 7 years, usually children will:

Focus on one thing without being reminded to concentrate.
Follow and remember a story that is told over several days.
Understand long instructions, for example, ‘Put your toys back in the cupboard, go upstairs and find your swimming things’.
Learn that the same word can mean two things, such as "orange" the fruit and "orange" the colour.
Understand feelings and descriptive words like "carefully", "slowly" or "surprised".
Talk for lots of different reasons, such as to share ideas, to solve problems or to tell jokes.
Use long sentences and put the right endings on their words, for example "She likes sitting on a bed because beds are softer".
Use words like "so", "because" to join their sentences together.
Can take turns to talk in conversations with adults and children in lots of different situations, either with one person or in a group.
Talk clearly so that unfamiliar people can understand them almost all of the time. They might still make mistakes in tricky words, like saying "spash" instead of "splash".
Talk quite fluently and don’t repeat the first sound in words or get "stuck" trying to get a word out.

by 11 years, usually children will:

Use sentences to link their ideas together, make predictions and draw conclusions.
Use sentences that normally have between 8 and 10 words (although often their sentences can be much longer).
Can make up a complicated story including lots of information about the characters and what happened.
Can talk using more advanced words, such as ‘massive’, ‘enormous’ or ‘huge’ instead of ‘big’.
Understand other points of view and show that they agree or disagree.
Keep a conversation going by giving reasons and explaining choices.
Start conversations with adults and children they don’t know.
Understand long requests with lots of information in them. For example, ‘Please find the stripey bag at the top of my wardrobe and put it in the big cupboard in the kitchen’.
Talk clearly so that everyone can understand them all the time.
Talk quite smoothly and don’t repeat the first sound in words or get stuck trying to get a word out.

Your child finds it hard to learn and understand the meanings of words.
Your child finds it hard to understand conversations about things in the past or future.
Your child struggles to understand sentences that can mean more than one thing, such as ‘pull your socks up’.
Your child only follows part of an instruction you give them, usually the beginning or end.
Your child uses short sentences, often with words missing or in the wrong order.
Your child finds it hard to make up stories.
Your child is struggling to make and keep friends.

Your child may struggle to join in group conversations. This may be because they can’t keep up with the pace of the conversation or because they are unsure how to join in.
It might be difficult to understand what they are saying.
Your child’s stories may be muddled, making them difficult to follow.
Your child may struggle to understand conversations about more complicated topics, especially about things in the past or future.
Your child may find it hard to guess what will happen next.
Your child may be struggling to learn at school. They could find it hard to understand what it is they are supposed to be doing, even though they have been told.