• By now, children say their first words with meaning

• When the child says ‘Dada’, they are calling for dad

• There's an explosion of vocabulary

• Uses words to talk to you

• They enjoy saying the same word over and over or have 'favorite words' 

• They use a lot of made-up words 

• The child repeats after you

• They understand what you tell them

• They can understand more than what they can say

• They can follow simple directives like "sit down", "come here", "look outside", etc. 

• First they’ll understand and say mostly nouns and social words, then adjectives come next, then verbs, adverbs and prepositions. 

• The child uses a combination of real words, made-up words, sounds and gestures to communicate

• Around 15 months, the child will point to things and ask for the name

• Around 18 months, the child refers to themselves by their name

• They don't start using 'I' until closer to 2 years old

• Stringing two words together  ‘mummy car’ or ‘me go’, combinations being mainly a noun + verb (dog eat, car go)

• Use only a few descriptive words at this age – for example, ‘big’ or ‘red’

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By 18 Months:

• The child should know and use at least 20 words minimum and up to 100 words, including different types of words:

  • nouns (“baby”, “cookie”)

  • verbs (“eat”, “go”)

  • prepositions (“up”, “down”)

  • adjectives (“hot”, “sleepy”)

  • social words (“hi”, “bye”)

  • they have new words everyday 

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Pronunciation

• By now the child can use a range of sounds to make words

• It's normal for toddlers not to pronounce all the sounds or words correctly

• Children sometimes use the wrong sound, replacing it by another, like saying 'tat' instead of 'cat'

• Some children leave out the end sounds ('ca', instead of 'car')

• By the time they are 2 years old, a stranger should be able to understand about half of your child's words

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Conversation

• Learning how to have a conversation is part of the language development

• Children will often start conversation by drawing attention to something (pointing or asking 'what is that?')

• Children can answer simple questions

• Children can understand the difference in your tone (a question, a statement)

• Children know that you are showing them something, if you point or say 'Look!' 

• Children start using combination of words, gestures, sounds and tones to make it easier to be understood​

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When to Seek Assistance: 

• The child is not interested in sounds

• The child does not respond to their name or noises

• The child is not trying to communicate with babbling, words or gestures

• Has stopped using a language skill they once had​

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