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What kind of language should my child have by 18 months?
The goal is for you to get educated as a parent. Know what developmental milestones your child should meet and at what age. Then you are ready to challenge your child leading up to that age so they have the skills mastered at the age they should.
Below is a list of some of the speech and language skills your child should have by 18 months:
- Uses 10-20 words including names
- Combines 2 words and names at least 5 things
- Responds to “Yes/No” questions
- Follows simple commands
- Can identify body parts on self
- Retrieves objects from another room when asked
- Understands at least 50 words
- Asks for “More” & “What’s that?”
Is your child able to do all of the above skills?
If you answered yes, well done parent!
If you answered no, you are now armed with the knowledge to make it happen. Do NOT worry! You have plenty of time.
Here are some tips (if you follow this blog you have heard this before):
- Name EVERYTHING in your child’s world. You want to increase their vocabulary. Call a sandal a sandal and not a shoe. Call a jacket a jacket and not a coat. Your job is to share words with your child.
- Siblings in the household? Great! Teach siblings to name everything too. Siblings should make the younger child try to say the word and not allow pointing and grunting to be successful.
- Buy books with real pictures/photos. This will help you to increase the words in your child’s world. In cartoon pictures, a horse can look like a cow or dog. This can be confusing to your child.
- Make sure you are modelling simple sentences. If your child should be speaking in 2 word sentences, then you should talk to them in 2 word sentence like “big dog” and not “the dog is big” or “big boy” and not “you are a big boy”.
If your child is not mastering the above skills within a couple months of you teaching the skills, please consult your pediatrician. Our speech therapists have more tips and tricks to teach you to facilitate developmental speech and language. We are here to help!