At what age do children begin to speak

When Do Babies Start Talking? – Children's Health

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It's such a joyful moment when your baby speaks that first precious word.

But when should that happen? And should you worry if your baby doesn't speak as early as other children?

Kaleigh Loeffler, a speech-language pathologist with Children's Health℠, explains speech milestones to watch for in babies and toddlers and ways you can encourage your child to talk.

At what age do babies start talking?

Most babies say their first word sometime between 12 and 18 months of age. However, you'll start to hear the early stages of verbal communication shortly after birth.

"From birth to 3 months, babies make sounds. There's smiling and cooing," explains Loeffler. "Once your baby hits 6 months, you may hear more speech-like babbling. Your baby might make the 'puh' sound, the 'buh' sound and something that sounds like 'mi. '"

As your baby grows, you can expect these early speech milestones:

• Between birth and 3 months: Babies make cooing noises.
• Between 4 and 6 months: Babies laugh, giggle and make playful sounds.
• By 12 months old: Babies make longer strings of sounds like ba-ba-ba-ba-ba or da-da-da-da-da or mi-mi-mi.
• At 12 to 18 months old: Many babies start using single words. They name familiar people and objects – such as ma-ma, da-da, ball and cat.

"Typically, right before that 1-year mark, babies experiment with different sounds, and then you might hear a few words," says Loeffler. "But don't worry if your baby is not forming complete words by age 1. Sometimes the babbling continues well into the next year of life, with pointing and gesturing. That's OK. Your baby is still communicating."

Speech development chart

After age 1, Loeffler advises parents to watch for yearly speech milestones.

• By 12 to 18 months: Baby says single words.
• By age 2: Child says two-word phrases, such as "Dog sit." "Mommy go."
• By age 3: Child has words for almost everything and speaks three-word phrases.

Each year after that, children should form longer and longer sentences.

How many words should an 18-month-old and 2-year-old say?

At 18 months old, babies may say anywhere between 10-50 words. If your child has not hit that mark, you don't necessarily need to worry. Children develop at different rates.

"Instead of focusing on a specific word count for each age, consider: Is your child's vocabulary growing? Are they learning more words each week?" advises Loeffler. "If you're seeing continuous growth, that's an indicator that speech is going well."

Talk with your pediatrician if your child does not speak about 50 words by age 2.

What factors affect your baby's ability to talk?

Sometimes language development is delayed if your baby has certain medical issues or diagnoses, such as:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Cerebral palsy
• Down syndrome
• Hearing impairment

Environment also plays a factor in speech development. If children are not brought up with a rich exposure to language – where people interact with them often – they may be late talkers.

Has the COVID‑19 pandemic or masks affected babies' speech and language development?

At this point, there's not much research on how masks affect speech development. However, we know that a baby's face time with parents, caregivers and siblings is extremely valuable.

"In the first months of life, it's important for babies to see your face and mouth and learn to imitate your facial expressions," explains Loeffler. "Babies and toddlers with diagnosed speech problems need those visual cues. So, for them, masks could be especially challenging."

Long quarantines or isolation may also slow speech development in certain children if they don't get enough social interaction with others at home, preschool, daycare or playdates.

It's important to remember that masks and social distancing have played a critical role in keeping your child and family healthy. Loeffler recommends that parents raising babies and toddlers during the pandemic take steps to encourage speech development, such as:

• Spending lots of time interacting with your little ones at home without masks. Let them see your face so they can imitate your speech and facial expressions.
• Making plans for your children to play safely around other children – possibly outdoors in your yard, at a park or on a play date.

Are bilingual children delayed talkers?

There's a common misconception that children who grow up in bilingual homes and learn two languages will have speech delays. However, Loeffler says there is no evidence to support this. "If a child knows 10 words in both English and Spanish – water and agua, for example – we would count that as a 20-word vocabulary," she says. "Developmentally, they're on track."

How to teach your baby to talk

The best way to encourage your child to talk is to spend time talking and interacting with them. "Give your baby lots of face time and one-on-one interaction. Children learn language by watching and imitating your facial expressions. They're like sponges, absorbing everything around them," says Loeffler.

To help your baby talk, try these tips:

• When your baby coos, respond. Say: "Oh, are you happy? Are you sleepy?"
• When baby smiles, smile back. This back-and-forth interaction is communication. Your baby learns to pick up cues and respond.
• Narrate what you and baby do – as you do it. For example, say: "Daddy's changing baby's diaper." "Baby is holding a spoon." "Baby's kicking the ball." This parallel talk helps babies learn vocabulary.
• Read a book. Point to the pictures on each page. Talk about the colors and objects.
• Sing songs and nursery rhymes. To capture your baby's attention, dance or gently rock your baby as you sing. Act out "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Jack and Jill." Your baby will associate movement with words.
• Play. Any type of play – with balls, toys or pots and pans – contributes to babies' language development. They imitate what you do and say.
• Continue the conversation: As your baby becomes a toddler, teach them to put together new words by expanding on what they say. For example:
  • When your child points to a dog and says the word "dog," you can say: "Yes, that's a big dog. That dog is running outside. Hear the dog bark."
  • If the child says "airplane," say: "That's a big airplane. That plane is flying high in the sky."

Using toys and apps to promote speech development

Many parents are curious if certain toys or apps can help their baby learn to talk. Loeffler recommends choosing toys that display cause and effect. This can help children develop their thinking skills, which is necessary for language growth.

Some examples of cause-and-effect toys include:

• You put a ball in a hole, and it goes down a slide.
• You put a coin in a piggy bank, and it sings a song.
• You wind up a box, and a stuffed animal pops out.

If you use an app, be sure to engage with your child and carry that activity over into the child's real world. Face-to-face interaction is best for speech and language development.

What are signs that your child may need help with speech and language development?

Consult your pediatrician if your baby does NOT:

• Show interest or attempt to communicate (such as pointing or gesturing) by 15 months
• Imitate a variety of sounds and words by 18 months
• Follow simple directions by 18 months ("Get the ball.")
• Use word combinations by age 2 ("Mamma go." "Baby drink.")
• Identify people and objects in their environment

Other signs of potential speech issues in children include:

• Your child seems to have a good vocabulary, but you cannot understand the words by age 2. 5 or 3.
• Your child has a sudden loss of speech and language skills.

If you're concerned about your child's speech development, talk to your primary care doctor or pediatrician. If needed, you'll get a referral to a speech-language therapist for an evaluation. Sometimes, your child just needs a little extra help. Early intervention can ensure your child thrives.

Learn more.

At Children's Health, the Speech Therapy program is home to experts who specialize in helping children overcome speech and language impairments. Our multidisciplinary works with patient families and providers to help children develop the skills to successfully communicate, socialize and learn. Learn more about speech language pathology or see more information about developmental milestones in babies.

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When should my child start speaking?

Children develop at varying rates in all sorts of ways, from when they take their first steps to when they understand that their own perspective might be different to someone else’s. Language is no different so there is no set age at which a child should start talking.

There are, of course, certain milestones which most children achieve in their communication at certain ages and it can be a daunting time for parents who see their friend’s children begin speaking earlier than their own. For most children, this is likely just the natural variation in when children achieve their own milestones. For others, this could be a temporary language delay which will eventually see them catch up without any intervention.

But for some children a delay in early language milestones might be the first sign of a long-term disorder of language development. So what should parents look for if they are concerned about their child’s language development?

Read more: Surprising facts about how we talk to babies

It’s not all about speech

Generally, children begin to babble from around the age of six months and say their first words between ten and 15 months (most start speaking at about 12 months). They then begin to pick up increasing numbers of words and start to combine them into simple sentences after around 18 months.

It is important to note that language is not just the sounds we make with our voice. The idea that language is only speech is a huge misconception. We take it for granted, but understanding the language used by those around us is a very complex task. We need to have knowledge of the words being used, have a concept of what those words mean in different contexts and understand the meaning of a sentence based on the order of the words. These are called receptive language skills.

Parents should be aware that from the earliest stages of language development, children understand more than they can communicate themselves. Indeed, it is through children’s understanding of the language surrounding them – in other words, what parents, siblings and caregivers are saying – that they build their own language skills.

Some conditions affecting speech, such as a stutter, are highly noticeable. In contrast, the problems children have when they are not developing language in the typical fashion can sometimes be hidden. Sometimes seemingly complex instructions can be readily understood due to the overall context. For example, telling your child to “go and get your coat and boots on” may be understood due to the context of getting ready to leave the house and understanding the words “coat” and “boots”.

Other instructions with a less clear context, such as “get the blue and black book that is under the blanket on the chair”, require a better understanding of the language itself and might be harder for children with language difficulties. It is often difficult to identify an underlying language problem in many children, particularly when they are good at using the social context.

Read more: Before babies understand words, they understand tones of voice

When to seek help

For the children themselves, it can be very frustrating when they are unable to express their thoughts or when they don’t fully understand what is going on around them. A child that has temper tantrums but finds it hard to say why they are distressed may have an underlying language difficulty. This might signal language delay, which is not uncommon. If you notice that your child finds it hard to follow simple instructions this could be due to a difficulty in understanding language, which may indicate a more persistent problem.

About 70-80% of children with expressive delays catch up with their language by the age of four. For others this might highlight developmental language disorder (DLD), a long-term impairment of language skills. Even experts find it difficult to tell language delay and disorder apart before primary school. DLD is thought to affect 7.6%, or one in 15 children. DLD can affect expressive and receptive language skills and it lasts into adulthood.

All children have the capacity to thrive, but children with DLD may need extra support to achieve their full potential. Rather than “wait and see” it is a good idea to seek professional advice, particularly if your child is between 18 and 30 months and appears to have problems understanding language, uses very few gestures to communicate and is slow at learning new words. The first step is to contact a local speech and language therapy service.

Boosting language skills

Language is flexible and there is no such thing as too much language input. Whatever level of language development your child has, there are always things that you can do to boost their language skills further.

For example, when you are playing with your toddler, watch where their eyes are going and label the things they see. If they say “horse running”, you can build on this with: “Yes, the horse is running! Where is he running to?” This helps children to learn new words and concepts as well as learn about how better to structure sentences.

Reading books together is great for building language skills, as you can find new words in books for things not often seen in real life, such as zoo animals. It is also valuable in promoting attention and listening skills. Be sure to ask lots of “why” and “how” questions to get more language out of your child, rather than questions which can be answered with a “yes” or “no”. Watching videos or children’s television can be similar, but only if you are watching and discussing the videos or shows together.

It sounds simple but having back and forth conversations with your child can help enormously. Not only can this be incredibly rewarding socially, but it can help build and expand their language and wider social communication skills. Try to build this into regular activities, such as talking with your child while doing the supermarket shop.

Early Childhood Speech Development Calendar

Early childhood is considered a very important period in a child's life.

This is the time of the most rapid and rapid changes in the mental and physical development of the baby, the child takes the first steps, learns to speak, begins to use gestures and other means of communication.

3 weeks - 1 month - there is a cry indicating emotional discomfort, pain or hunger. With physical stress, the child groans, making the sounds "a", "e". nine0003

2 - 3 months : the baby has a cooing, he utters simple sounds - " a", "y", "s ", sometimes in combination with " g ". This is an important stage in the development of speech in young children.

4 - 6 months - makes high melodious sounds, sounds of exclamation, reacts with joyful sounds to the faces of loved ones.

6 - 9 months - babbling, he repeats the same syllables (“ma-ma-ma”, “ba-ba-ba”, “dya-dya-dya”, “gu-gu-gu”).

9 - 11 months - the baby begins to imitate the sounds of adult speech.

11 - 14 months - the first meaningful words "mom", "dad", "woman", "uncle" appear, from 8 to 14 words. Correlates a word with an object

By the age of 2 years there are 100-200 words in the baby's vocabulary. He is already building a sentence of 2-3 words.

By the age of 3 the volume of the dictionary increases to 1000 words by enriching the child's life experience. Simple prepositions appear: in, on, under, for, with, at. The child remembers poems, children's songs. nine0003

By the end of 3 years , most children are able to construct sentences grammatically correctly, conduct dialogues, tell what they have seen and heard.

Important to know:

Do not listen to advice from other parents whose children began to say after 3 years that the child will speak on his own. He will speak, the only question is what kind of speech it will be, its quality.

How to identify the signs of a speech disorder in a child? nine0016