Babies start producing their first words around 9-12 months of age. Once they have reached this exciting milestone, their language begins to grow at a rapid pace.
On average, a child will be saying approximately 50 words by 18 months.
This 50 word milestone is a great way to measure if your baby is ready for you to help them start building phrases and short sentences.
A strategy commonly discussed in speech therapy is the “+1” strategy. This means you are repeating back what your baby says, and adding on one word to it. For example, if your baby says “milk” you can say back to them “more milk” or “milk please.”
You may begin to hear your child produce some of their own sentences once they have a big enough vocabulary to do so.
As your child grows, so will their sentence complexity. When a child is learning to create more complex sentences, it is natural for there to be errors in their language.
As a general rule of thumb, most children should be speaking in full sentences by age 5.
Some grammatical elements may be more difficult than others, however you can best support your child by recasting their utterance using correct grammar. For example, if your child says “He falled down!” you would say “Yes, he fell down!”
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s language, give our office a call! Our team of Speech Therapists are here to help your child reach their highest potential!