Let’s talk speech!

If you have a little one who isn’t yet talking, you may be hearing a lot of adorable baby gurgles and coos and witnessing a lot of funny facial expressions in the process. Do you find yourself wondering, when will those cute noises turn into words? What will my baby’s first word be? Will it be, "mamma," or "dada," or something else? When should I expect to hear that first word? 

Milestones like speech are as exciting as a child’s first step. Speech is also a very important part of a child's development. While there’s no telling whether your child will say mamma or dada first, or exactly when their first word will come out of their mouth, there are speech milestones to be aware of and things to watch for if you have any concerns about delays or speech development. 
 

A child's speaking milestones 

• The first signs of a child’s speech are typically the cooing sounds a baby makes. 
• Around 2 months old, most infants are making vocalization-type noises other than crying. 
• By 6 months old, babies are usually babbling quite a bit. At this point, the babbling is made up of mostly vowel sounds.  
• Between 6 to 8 months old, babies normally start to add consonant sounds to their babbling. If you are not hearing consonants by 9 months old, only vowel sounds, contact your baby’s doctor to check in on his or her hearing. 
• Around 9 months old, you may start hearing what sounds something like, “mamamamamama,” or, “dadadadadada.” At this point, your child is mainly repeating a string of syllables, but you can’t really understand what they are saying. 
• By 1 year old, most babies now use mama and dada appropriately. Most children can also understand the word, “no” even if they do not always listen when they’re told so. 
• Around 15 months old, children usually have at least one or two words other than, “mama” or “dada.”  However, they usually understand many other words. This is also the age for “conversational babble.” This is when your child sounds like they are speaking a foreign language. They actually have vocal intonation, and some sentence structure. But the vocabulary is predominantly gibberish. 
• Between 15 and 18 months old, many toddlers do a lot of pointing and whining. As parents or caregivers, we now get to guess what they want! When you find out what your child wants, try to get them to say the name of the object before giving it to them. 
• Anywhere between 18 months and 2 years old, toddlers have a speech burst. They go from knowing just a few words to knowing more than you can count.  

 

Toddler speech progress 

While every child is different, there are some speech guidelines for toddlers that give us a baseline for progress. These are just milestones and are intended to be used as guides. The general rule of thumb is that for each year of age, that's how many words should be strung together in sentences. In other words, most: 

• 2-year-olds can say two-word combinations. At age 2, toddlers also typically have approximately 100 words in their vocabulary. 
• 3-year-olds can say three-word combinations. At age 3, toddlers also typically have more than 250 words in their vocabulary. 

 

Helping your child to talk 

Picture books are one of the best ways to help your child’s speech, and basic board books can be introduced within the first 6 months. As your child grows, they can point at pictures. They may even grunt or ask you “wazzat” or “whaa”? Engage with them and answer! As you answer and talk to them about what’s in the book, this back-and-forth interaction will help their speech development and vocabulary. In fact, using books this way is better than any educational video or app that is made to help babies learn new words. 
 

When to seek professional help 

If your toddler is not meeting certain speech criteria or guidelines, don’t panic. Remember that every child develops at a different rate and that includes talking. If your child has been meeting speech milestones so far, don’t get worried if your niece, nephew, or a fellow 2-year-old at daycare is more talkative than yours. When in doubt, talk to your child’s doctor if you have concerns or questions. As long as your child's speech is progressing, your child’s doctor may have no concerns and nothing may need to be done.