Language development: 1-2 years

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Here are some of the things your toddler might do as he develops language and learns to communicate between the ages of one and two years:

• expand the vocabulary of words he understands from approximately 50 to around 300. At first he’ll understand mostly nouns (dog, bus, couch), and eventually a few verbs (eat, run) and adjectives (big, blue)

• increase the number of words he can say:
  • at 12 months, about 3 words
  • at 18 months, about 10-20 words
  • at 23 months, about 50-100 words

• practise using his new skill of talking, using different tones and inflections, and often mixing ‘babble’ with real words. He may enjoy saying the same sound or word over and over
• use the same words to refer to different things – for example, calling all animals ‘doggie’
• at around 12 months, learn the names of things nearby – for example, common objects (cup, doll), body parts (tummy, toe) and clothes (sock, hat)
• by around 15 months, point to things further away and ask you to name them
• at around 18 months, refer to himself by his name, and a few months later, begin to understand and use ‘I’ to refer to himself; he is realising that he’s a separate person, with his own ideas and things
• begin to use two-word sentences (‘Mummy car’, ‘Me go’, ‘Sock foot’) near the end of this period. Only a few descriptive words (big, red, sunny) or elements of grammar (the, is) are common at this age
• enhance words with gestures and tone of voice to make it easier for you to understand. He may use the same word to mean lots of different things, but with different gestures or tone
• use a range of speech sounds, although it is normal for his pronunciation of words to sound different from adult speech – for example, he might say ‘tar’ instead of ‘car’ or he might leave off the ends of words altogether
• use pronunciation that will often get in the way of your understanding – by two years of age, about half of what he says may be understood by someone who doesn’t know him well
• understand the difference in your tone when you ask a question or make a statement, or when you’re positive or negative
• during this year, understand some regularly used phrases (‘Give me a kiss’), simple directions (‘Stop that!’) and very, very simple explanations. He will begin to be able to identify parts of his body, and to point to objects when asked (‘Show me the truck’).
• request information frequently by saying, ‘What’s that?’
• answer questions
• begin to play alongside other children, but may not understand how to share toys
• enjoy imitating the actions of people around him and start to understand how to get attention from others by ‘showing off’. 

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