When do babies start talking?

Children develop language at different rates. From the moment they’re born, babies have a very effective way of telling you what they’re thinking and feeling. It’s called crying. Babies communicate from birth through crying and eye contact, and then simple sounds and gestures. Crying is how babies let you know they want or need something – more cuddles please, no more cuddles please, hungry, not hungry enough, too tired, not tired enough, feeling too cold, feeling too warm. And sometimes babies cry for no obvious reason. Crying is the only way your new baby knows how to communicate her needs to you. Your baby doesn’t cry to annoy you – there’s no such thing as a naughty newborn. You can’t spoil your baby by responding when she cries.

Your baby absorbs a huge amount of information about words and talking from birth. Just listening to you and watching you talk helps your baby understand the basics of communicating. For example, your new baby uses eye contact to communicate with you. He might gaze into your face and watch your mouth. He’s also listening intently to every word and sound you make.

At about 7-8 weeks of age, your baby discovers that she has a voice. You can expect her to start cooing and making simple sounds. And as your baby grows, he’ll start to make more sounds. For example, he’ll experiment with sounds like sneezing, coughing, gagging and squealing to get your attention. He’ll also start to smile and wave his arms and feet around. And then he’ll use gestures like pointing and waving bye-bye.

Your child will also learn to talk by watching how you communicate with others. If you talk in a positive way, your child will learn to speak positively to others. For example, when you’re talking together at mealtimes, you can use positive language like ‘What was good about your day today?’

Your baby is getting the idea of conversation and wants to tell you all sorts of interesting things. By communicating back and forth with your baby, you’re also creating and sharing experiences together, which strengthens your relationship with your child. And a strong relationship with you is essential to your baby’s healthy development.

Toddlers or young children use their parent’s faces and tone of voice, along with their increasing understanding of language to make sense of their experiences. Talking with your baby or toddler can help his language and communication development. The more you talk with your baby or toddler, the better. This is because parents who talk a lot to their young children use lots of different sounds and words. When children hear more words and lots of different words, it improves their understanding of language. It also increases the number and variety of words that they understand and use. And it’s not just about better language skills. Talking with babies helps their brains develop and can help children do better at school when they’re older.

Latest research informs us that a child’s first 1001 days are crucial in developing attachment, physical development, communication and early language. While all three areas are key to a young child’s development this article unpacks how mums, dads, family and friends can support a child’s early communication skills. Again, research states the importance of early communication and language and the need for children to be experimenting with sounds, babbling, making noises, learning vocabulary, and communicating from as early an age as possible.

It’s great to start talking with your baby as early as you can. In fact, from birth your baby absorbs a huge amount of information about words and talking, just from listening and watching you talk.

Conversations with your baby might feel one-sided to begin with. But even though your young baby doesn’t have words yet, she’ll be listening to you, and she’ll try to join the conversation! She’ll use crying, eye contact and listening to communicate. Later on, she’ll coo, smile, laugh, make more sounds and move her body to communicate with you.

Tips for talking with babies and toddlers

You might feel silly having conversations with a baby or a toddler who’s not talking much, but keep at it. Conversations and activities that include some of the ideas below are good for developing your child’s language skills.

Tune into your child

• Reduce distractions. Turn off the TV or computer or do whatever helps you to just ‘be present’ to talk to your child.
• Notice what your child is interested in, ask a question or make a comment, and then give your child time to respond. For example, at bath time you could say, ‘Is that Ducky? Ducky’s swimming. Splash!’
• As your toddler learns to talk, give him time to find words for his ideas and really listen when he talks. For example, try not to finish his sentences for him, and make sure he’s finished before you talk. This sends the message that what your child has to say matters.
• Use natural pauses. Your child will eventually fill in these pauses when her language develops. This also teaches her ‘give and take’ in a conversation.

Be interesting

• Talk to your child about things he’s interested in – for example, what grandpa might be doing today, a story you’ve read together, or something that’s happening outside.
• Talk about an experience you shared – for example, ‘It’s sunny today. But remember how wet we got on the way home yesterday? Your socks were soaked!’
• Use lots of expression to make your conversation interesting and engaging. What you talk about doesn’t matter as much as how you talk about it.
• If you use complex words, explain them and build on them by using lots of descriptive words. For example, ‘We’re going to see the pediatrician – that’s a special doctor who knows all about babies and children’.

Read, tell stories, sing songs and make rhymes

• Read books and tell stories to your baby from birth, every day if you can. After a few weeks, your baby will know that this is when you enjoy a quiet, special time together.
• Talk about the pictures in books, wonder out loud what might happen next in the story, point out words and letters, and let your child touch and hold the book and turn the pages. You can make up your own stories to go with the pictures in the book.
• Help your child learn that books and reading are fun. You can do this by having a special reading spot, making cuddles part of reading time and letting your child choose some books – even if you have to read the same ones over and over again!
• Sing songs and rhymes in the car, in the bath, at bedtime – even if it’s off-key. Your baby will love the rhythm of the words and will be soothed by your voice.

How do speech and language develop?

The first 3 years of life, when the brain is developing and maturing, is the most intensive period for acquiring speech and language skills. These skills develop best in a world that is rich with sounds, sights, and consistent exposure to the speech and language of others.

There appear to be critical periods for speech and language development in infants and young children when the brain is best able to absorb language. If these critical periods are allowed to pass without exposure to language, it will be more difficult to learn.

What are the milestones for speech and language development?

The first signs of communication occur when an infant learns that a cry will bring food, comfort, and companionship. Newborns also begin to recognize important sounds in their environment, such as the voice of their mother or primary caretaker. As they grow, babies begin to sort out the speech sounds that compose the words of their language. By 6 months of age, most babies recognize the basic sounds of their native language.

Children vary in their development of speech and language skills. However, they follow a natural progression or timetable for mastering the skills of language. A checklist of milestones for the normal development of speech and language skills in children from birth to 5 years of age is included below. These milestones help doctors and other health professionals determine if a child is on track or if he or she may need extra help. Sometimes a delay may be caused by hearing loss, while other times it may be due to a speech or language disorder.

What are voice, speech, and language?

Voice, speech, and language are the tools we use to communicate with each other.

Voice is the sound you make as air from your lungs is pushed between vocal folds in your larynx, causing them to vibrate.

Speech is talking, which is one way to express language. It involves the precisely coordinated muscle actions of the tongue, lips, jaw, and vocal tract to produce the recognizable sounds that make up language.

Language is a set of shared rules that allow people to express their ideas in a meaningful way. Language may be expressed verbally or by writing, signing, or making other gestures, such as eye blinking or mouth movements.

What is the difference between a speech disorder and a language disorder?

Children who have trouble understanding what others say (receptive language) or difficulty sharing their thoughts (expressive language) may have a language disorder. Specific language impairment is a language disorder that delays the mastery of language skills. Some children with specific language impairment may not begin to talk until their third or fourth year.

Children who have trouble producing speech sounds correctly or who hesitate or stutter when talking may have a speech disorder. Apraxia of speech is a speech disorder that makes it difficult to put sounds and syllables together in the correct order to form words.

What should I do if my child’s speech or language appears to be delayed?

Talk to your child’s doctor if you have any concerns. Your doctor may refer you to a speech-language pathologist, who is a health professional trained to evaluate and treat people with speech or language disorders. The speech-language pathologist will talk to you about your child’s communication and general development. He or she will also use special spoken tests to evaluate your child. A hearing test is often included in the evaluation because a hearing problem can affect speech and language development. Depending on the result of the evaluation, the speech-language pathologist may suggest activities you can do at home to stimulate your child’s development. They might also recommend group or individual therapy or suggest further evaluation by an audiologist (a health care professional trained to identify and measure hearing loss), or a developmental psychologist (a health care professional with special expertise in the psychological development of infants and children).

Baby language development

Your baby’s communication skills grow dramatically in her first year of life. She will learn how to express herself, respond to you and understand when you communicate with her. All this happens before she says her first real words around her first birthday. As part of his language development in the first year, your baby will express himself in many ways.

At 3-4 months, he might:

• make eye contact with you
• say ‘ah goo’ or another combination of vowels and consonants.
• babble and combine vowels and consonants, like ‘ga ga ga ga’, ‘ba ba ba ba’, ‘ma ma ma ma’ and ‘da da da da’.

At 5-7 months, she might:

• copy some of the sounds and gestures you make, like coughing, laughing, clicking or making ‘raspberries’
• play with making different sounds, like ‘aaieee’, ‘booo’ and ‘ahh’ at varying (sometimes earsplitting!) pitches and volumes.

At 8-9 months, he might:

• make longer sequences of sounds, which might sound like normal speech – this is sometimes called the ‘jargon phase’ and might continue when first words begin
• say ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, although he might not know what these mean yet.

At 10-11 months, she might:

• communicate with purpose, mainly to request, insist, refuse, reject or greet someone
• ask for something by pointing, or by looking at a person then at something she wants.

By around 12-14 months, your baby might say a few words and know what they mean, like ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ to refer to mum or dad.

In these months, your baby will respond to you in many ways. For example, he might:

• make sounds, look excited or go quiet when you talk with him or say his name
• coo and laugh – for example, while you’re changing his nappy
• smile and laugh when you play with him
• enjoy games like peekaboo and other action games
• use gestures like waving or pointing
• respond to his own name by looking, widening his eyes, listening or smiling.

Understanding

It’s amazing how much your baby understands already – she’s listening and learning all the time, as she makes sense of her world.

For example, in these months, you might find that your baby understands:

• the word ‘no’ at around 10 months – although he still won’t always do as you say
• very simple instructions with verbal and visual cues – for example, at around 12 months, when you hold your hand out and say ‘ta’, he’ll give you the toy he’s holding.

Typical stages of speech and language development in babies

0-6 months

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 0-6 months.

Children develop skills at different rates but by 6 months, usually children will:

• Turn towards a sound when they hear it
• Be startled by loud noises
• Watch your face when you talk to them
• Recognize your voice
• Smile and laugh when other people smile and laugh
• Make sounds to themselves, like cooing, gurgling and babbling
• Make noises, like coos or squeals, to get your attention
• Have different cries for different needs. For example, one cry for hunger, another when they are tired.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage your child at this stage:

• Copy sounds your baby makes. This will encourage more noises and is the start of turn-taking and conversations
• Hold your baby near your face when you talk to them so that they can see you clearly
• Talk to your baby about what you are doing. This will help them to start to learn words
• Talk in a sing-song voice to your baby. This will keep them interested in what you are saying
• Have some special time with your child each day to play with toys and picture books.

Things to look out for

Speech and language skills develop from a very early age. However, some children do not develop the early skills they need.

These can be very difficult to spot from an early age. Here are four examples that would cause concern at 6 months:

• If a baby is not startled by loud noises
• If a baby does not engage in eye contact when spoken to
• If a baby does not smile back at someone smiling at them
• If a baby does not watch a speaker’s face with interest.

6-12 months

Children develop skills at different rates but by their first year, usually children will:

• Listen carefully, and turn to someone talking on the other side of the room
• Look at you when you speak and when their name is called
• Babble strings of sounds, like ‘no-no’ and ‘go-go’
• Make noises, point and look at you to get your attention
• Smile at people who are smiling at them
• Start to understand words like ‘bye-bye’ and ‘up’ especially when a gesture is used at the same time
• Recognize the names of familiar objects, things like ‘car’ and ‘daddy’
• Enjoy action songs and rhymes and get excited when sung to
• Take turns in conversations, babbling back to an adult.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage your child at this stage:

• Make different sounds to interest your child. This can be varying the sound of your voice or things like a rattle or squeaky toy.
• Pointing to sounds will help develop your child’s listening skills. This will also help develop their awareness of the world around them.
• Encourage your child to look at you during activities. This could be dressing, feeding or nappy changing. This will help your child’s attention and communication skills.
• Talk about everyday activities, like getting dressed, eating and bathing.
• Copy your baby when they are babbling. This is a very good way to show how to take turns in communication. This will encourage them to make even more sounds.
• Use actions with words. Try waving as you say ‘bye-bye’ or picking up their cup as you say ‘drink’. This will help your child to relate what they see and do with the words they need .
• Sing action songs and play games like ‘peek-a-boo’ to encourage communication and attention skills.
• Have some special time with your child each day to play with toys and picture books.

Things to look out for

Speech and language skills develop from a very early age. However, some children do not develop the early skills they need.

This can be very difficult to spot from an early age. However, you should talk to a doctor if your child does not:

• Respond to noises by 9 months
• Point to things they are interested in by one year

Try to gain your attention by making noises by one year. This could be through eye contact, facial expressions or reaching.

12-18 months

Children develop skills at different rates but by 18 months, usually children will:

• Enjoy listening to music and singing, and sometimes move their body to ‘dance’ along to music
• Enjoy looking at simple picture books together with an adult
• Understand many more words than they can say, including the names of everyday objects like furniture, clothing and body parts
• Understand some simple questions and instructions like ‘where’s teddy?’ and ‘kiss Mummy’
• Say up to 20 single words (such as ‘cup’, ‘daddy’, ‘dog’) to ask for things or to comment on what they see, even though they may not be very clear yet
• Use a lot of babble and single words while they are playing, often sounding like they are speaking in sentences even though they aren’t always saying real words
• Copy a lot of things that they see adults doing, like saying ‘Hello’ or waving goodbye
• Enjoy simple pretend play, such as giving dolly a drink or pretending to talk on the phone

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage your child at this stage:

• Look at your child when you are talking to them. This is easier to do if you are at the same level, so get down to their eye level or bring them up to yours.
• Talk to your child in short, simple sentences. This helps them to understand what you’re saying, and also gives them a better chance of copying a word or two when they’re ready.
• Talk about the things your child is looking at or doing. Follow their lead when playing with them and talk about what interests them.
• Repeat words often – children need to hear words many times before they remember them and say them.
• Talk to your child often during daily routines like mealtimes and bath time.
• Repeat back what you think your child means when they don’t have the words. For example, if your child points at the biscuit tin and babbles, you could say ‘Biscuit? You want a biscuit?’.
• Give your child choices between two things to encourage communication. For example, instead of saying, ‘What do you want to drink?’, you could say, ‘Do you want milk or juice?’, holding both choices up in front of them.

Things to look out for

While all children develop differently, it’s worth seeking advice from a professional if your child does not:

• Babble to communicate by 12 – 15 months
• Say their first words by 18 months
• Appear to understand some of what you say to them by 18 months

18-24 months

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 18-24 months.

At this stage, children try out new things and explore the world around them more actively. They will often choose their own activities and may not always like being told what to do.

Children develop skills at different rates but by 2 years, usually children will:

• Concentrate on activities for longer, such as playing with a toy they like
• Sit and listen to simple stories with pictures
• Understand between 200 and 500 words
• Understand more simple questions and instructions. For example, ‘where is your shoe?’ and ‘show me your nose’
• Copy sounds and words a lot
• Use 50 or more single words. These will also become more recognisable to others
• Start to put short sentences together with 2-3 words, such as ‘more juice’ or ‘bye nanny’.
• Enjoy pretend play with their toys, such as feeding dolly
• Use a more limited number of sounds in their words than adults – often these sounds are p, b, t, d, m and w. Children will also often miss the ends off words at this stage. They can usually be understood about half of the time.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage children at this stage:

• Talk about everyday activities like putting away the shopping. This helps children to connect language to the world around them. Remember to leave little gaps or pauses so that your child can respond.
• Use objects and gestures to help them understand instructions and questions. It is also useful to give a child two or three options, such as, ‘do you want teddy or the car?’, ‘is this your nose or your foot?’
• Read books together. Looking at the pictures and describing them is just as good as actually reading the story. ’Lift-the-flap’ books also help concentration
• Repeat and expand on what a child says. If a child says ‘juice’ you can say ‘more juice’, ‘juice please’ or ‘juice gone’. This shows your child how words can be put together to make short sentences
• Children learn speech sounds gradually. It is better to say the whole word back to a child rather than correcting them. It also helps them if they can see your face when you are talking to them. This helps them to watch and copy the movements of your lips
• Children can be frustrated when adults don’t understand them. This can lead to tantrums. Encouraging a child to use gestures or actions for objects can help. Try to be patient and wait for them to finish what they are saying or trying to show you.

Things to look out for

For some children, developing communication can be a very difficult process. They may need extra help to develop their skills. You should be concerned if by 2 years, they are:

• Slow to follow simple instructions
• Not saying 25 recognizable words.

2-3 years

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 2 and 3 years.

Children develop skills at different rates, but by 3 years usually children will:

• Listen to and remember simple stories with pictures
• Understand longer instructions, such as ‘make teddy jump’ or ‘where’s mummy’s coat?’
• Understand simple ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘where’ questions
• Use up to 300 words
• Put 4 or 5 words together to make short sentences, such as ‘want more juice’ or ‘he took my ball’
• Ask lots of questions. They will want to find out the name of things and learn new words
• Use action words such as ‘run’ and ‘fall’ as well as words for the names of things,
• Start to use simple plurals by adding ‘s’, for example ‘shoes’ or ‘cars’
• Use a wider range of speech sounds. However, many children will shorten longer words, such as saying ‘nana’ instead of ‘banana’. They may also have difficulty where lots of sounds happen together in a word, e.g. they may say ‘pider’ instead of ‘spider’
• Often have problems saying more difficult sounds like sh, ch, th and r. However, people that know them can mostly understand them
• Now play more with other children and share things
• Sometimes sound as if they are stammering or stuttering. They are usually trying to share their ideas before their language skills are ready. This is perfectly normal at this age, just show you are listening and give them plenty of time. It’s not helpful to draw attention to their ‘stammering’ by saying things like ‘take your time’. Just try to be patient and not interrupt them.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage children at this stage:

• Adding words to children’s sentences can show them how words fit together. For example, if a child says, ‘dolly hair’ you can say ‘brush dolly’s hair’
• Often children enjoy helping. Sharing daily jobs gives a chance to talk about objects and actions
• Use puppets and pictures to help children listen to stories. Don’t be afraid to tell a story more than once. Repetition helps children to understand and remember words
• Give children the correct example for sounds and words. This helps if they are having problems saying a certain word or sound. If you correct them or make them say it again, you can make them feel anxious. Simply repeat what they have said using the right words and sounds. With time they will be able to do it themselves.

Things to look out for

For some children, developing communication skills can be very difficult. It is important that parents seek advice from a speech and language therapist if:

• A child points or shows what they want rather than says it.
• They only say single words instead of joining words together into short sentences.
• They are slow to respond to your instructions.
• They rely on being shown what to do rather than being told.
• You cannot understand most of what they say.

3-4 years

Children at 3 to 4 years will usually be actively learning language and asking many questions.

Children develop skills at different rates, but by 4 years usually children will:

• Listen to longer stories and answer questions about a storybook they have just read
• Understand and often use color, number and time related words, for example, ‘red’ car, ‘three’ fingers and ‘yesterday / tomorrow’
• Start to be able to answer questions about ‘why’ something has happened, although this still might be at quite a basic level
• Use longer sentences and link sentences together
• Describe events that have already happened, even if their sentences aren’t exactly like adults’ e.g. ‘we went park’
• Enjoy make-believe play
• Start to like simple jokes even if they don’t understand them
• Ask many questions using words like ‘what’ ‘where’ and ‘why’
• Still make mistakes with tense such as say ‘runned’ for ‘ran’ and ‘swimmed’ for ‘swam’
• Have difficulties with a small number of sounds – for example r, w, l, f, th, sh, ch and j
• Start to be able to plan games with others.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage children at this stage:

• Have a special time to talk about the day. Talking about what has happened that day will help their memory skills. It will also help them to talk about things they cannot see and things that happened in the past which is an important skill for learning in school
• Wherever possible, use pictures, objects, puppets, acting, gestures and facial expressions. This will keep a child’s interest
• Talk about or play games involving opposites like ‘on and off’ or ‘big and little’
• Join a child in pretend play. Let them take the lead. This will help their language and creativity. Talk about what they are saying and doing rather than asking lots of questions. Your commentary helps their language skills and shows you are listening and interested
• Reversing roles can be great fun for a child. Let them be the ‘mummy’ or the ‘teacher’. This helps them to talk about new situations
• Play with and talk about sequences of coloured bricks or shapes, numbers and days of the week.

Things to look out for

By 3 and a half years old a child should be understood by people outside the family. If not, parents should seek advice from a speech and language therapist.

You should be concerned if:

• They are struggling to turn ideas into sentences
• The language they use is jumbled and difficult to understand
• They are unresponsive or slow to follow instructions.

4-5 years

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 4 and 5 years.

At this stage, they need to listen, understand more and share their ideas within the classroom. They will use their language skills to help them learn to read.
Children develop skills at different rates but by 5 years usually children will:

Understand spoken instructions without stopping what they are doing to look at the speaker
Choose their own friends and play mates
Take turns in much longer conversations
Understand more complicated language such as ‘first’, ‘last’, ‘might’, ‘may be’, ‘above’ and ‘in between’
Understand words that describe sequences such as “first we are going to the shop, next we will play in the park”
Use sentences that are well formed. However, they may still have some difficulties with grammar. For example, saying ‘sheeps’ instead of ‘sheep’ or ‘goed’ instead of ‘went’
Think more about the meanings of words, such as describing the meaning of simple words or asking what a new word means
Use most sounds effectively. However, they may have some difficulties with more difficult words such as ‘scribble’ or ‘elephant’.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage your child at this stage:

• Building relationships with your child’s pre-school or school is very important. Find out what topics or songs they are learning. This can help you support new words and ideas your child is learning
• Playing board games that involve taking turns helps them to listen and concentrate for longer
• Encourage children to talk without being questioned. This can help them to talk more about their experiences. Open questions like ‘what are you going to play with today?’ encourage children to say more than ‘yes’ and ‘no’. If they find it difficult to answer such open questions, give them choices, such as ‘cars or animals?’
• Although children may know lots of different words it is important to introduce new words and phrases. This helps them to continue learning
• Having fun with words and rhymes can help children learn skills they need for reading and writing
• Children may need time to think before responding to questions and instructions. Give them time without answering for them or finishing their sentences.

Things to look out for

For some children, developing communication can be a very difficult process and they may need extra help. By 5 years you may see the following:

• Difficulty with abstract ideas such as size or time.
• Difficulty with complex sentences.
• Not having the right words to be able to say what they want.
• Difficulty organizing ideas in order.
• Missing out some words. For example, saying ‘playing ball’ instead of ‘the dog is playing with the ball’.
• Talking about lots of different topics in the same group of sentences.
• Not using the right sounds so that their speech is difficult to understand.

5-7 years

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 5 and 7 years. Often by 5 or 6 years, children have good communication skills. They are better at using language in different ways e.g. discussing ideas or giving opinions.

Children develop skills at different rates, but beyond 5 years, usually children will:

• Focus on one thing for longer without being reminded
• Rely less on pictures and objects to learn new words
• Use their language skills in learning to read, write and spell
• Learn that the same word can mean two things, such as ‘orange’ the fruit and ‘orange’ the colour
• Learn that different words can mean the same thing such as ’minus’ and ‘take away’
• Understand feelings and descriptive words like ‘carefully’, ‘slowly’ or ‘clever’
• Use language for different purposes such as asking questions or persuading
• Share and discuss more complex ideas
• Use language in a range of social situations.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage children at this stage:

• Help them to learn new words, such as words to do with positions, times and size.
• Make time to talk about your day
• Give a child time to talk to you
• Ask open questions like ‘tell me something you liked about today’.

Things to look out for

A child at this age should have well-developed speech, language and communication skills. If they are finding language difficult, you might notice that they:

• Find it hard to learn and understand the meanings of words
• Find it hard to understand language about things in the past or future
• Struggle to understand phrases that can mean more than one thing, such as “pull your socks up”
• Respond to just part of an instruction, usually the beginning or end
• Use short sentences, often with words missing or in the wrong order
• Find it hard to make up stories. This shows in written work as well as talking
• Are not learning at school, but nobody can explain why
• Are struggling to make and keep friends.

7-11 years

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 7 and 11 years.

Speech, language and communication development is a gradual process. Children develop skills at different rates but beyond 8 years, usually children will:

• Use language to predict and draw conclusions
• Use long and complex sentences
• Understand other points of view and show that they agree or disagree
• Understand comparative words e.g. ‘it was earlier than yesterday’
• Keep a conversation going by giving reasons and explaining choices
• Start conversations with adults and children they don’t know
• Understand and use passive sentences where the order of the words can still be confusing for younger children e.g. “the thief is chased by the policeman”.

How to support your child

Good communication is two-way and requires good listening skills. To help a child, you will need to demonstrate good listening skills yourself. Make sure that you have time for this in your day. You may need to explain words that a child still does not know.

A child’s vocabulary will be growing. Help them to understand new words they learn by talking about their meaning. Make sure they are not afraid to ask if they don’t understand a word. If you don’t know the exact meaning of a word – look it up in a child-friendly dictionary such as Collins Co-Build.

Just by having good conversations with children, you are supporting their language. So, talk to them. Ask them how their day at school was and how their friends are. Hopefully they don’t need too much encouragement to talk. Try to encourage conversations rather than just you doing the talking.

Things to look out for

At this stage, children should have well-developed speech, language and communication skills. A child with delayed language might show the following behaviors:

• They may struggle to join in group conversations. This is because there is too much language
• They may find it hard to make up stories. This will show in their written work as well as talking
• Their stories may be muddled, making them difficult to follow
• They may find it hard to learn and understand the meanings of words
• They may struggle to understand language about things in the past or future
• They may find it hard to make predictions
• They may find it difficult to understand language where the meaning isn’t clearly stated e.g. when the conversation involves new concepts or involves people or objects not present and visible to the child
• They may be struggling to learn at school. They could find it hard to understand what it is they are supposed to be doing, even though they have been told.

11-17 years

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 11-17 years. Language development at this stage is a gradual process. Changes still take place but they are harder to see. Children need to learn to develop relationships and join in social activities on their own.

What to expect between the ages of 11 and 14

At this stage children will:

• Use longer sentences; usually 7-12 words or more
• Build their sentences using a range of conjunctions or joining words, such as ‘meanwhile’, ‘however’, ‘except’ so that they can convey complex ideas
• Know how to use sarcasm. Know when others are being sarcastic to them
• Be able to change topic well in conversations
• Use more subtle and witty humor
• Show some understanding of idioms, such as “put your money where your mouth is!”
• Know that they talk differently to friends than to teachers and be able to adjust this easily
• Understand and use slang terms with friends. They keep up with rapidly changing ‘street talk’.

What to expect between 14-17 years

As they get older, young people can:

• Follow complicated instructions
• Know when they haven’t understood. They will ask to be told again or have something specific explained
• Easily swap between ‘classroom’ talk and ‘break-time’ talk
• Tell long and very complicated stories.

How to support your child

There are lots of things you can do to encourage young people at this stage:

• Encourage opportunities to talk without making them feel under pressure
• Use opportunities for chatting, like mealtimes
• Give everyone a chance to talk about their day, including you
• Help by explaining any words or phrases that they don’t understand
• Show that you are interested by making time to listen.

Things to look out for

At this stage, children should have well-developed speech, language and communication skills. At this age, a child might have delayed language if they:

• Have difficulty giving specific answers or explanations
• Have difficulty sequencing their ideas in the right order
• Are better at understanding individual instructions than group instructions
• Find it difficult to understand language where the meaning isn’t clearly stated e.g. be able to infer that someone wants to close the window or turn up the heating when they say ‘It’s a bit chilly in here!’
• Find long and complicated instructions hard to understand
• Have trouble learning new words
• Take a long time to organize what they are going to say or write
• Take things too literally. For example, “I’ll be back in a minute”
• Have difficulty taking turns in conversations
• Talk to teachers and friends in the same way.

How to encourage babies talking

When babies are alert, they’re more interested in communicating.

When your baby shows signs of wanting to communicate, you can respond by:

• being enthusiastic, warm and encouraging
• using lots of facial expressions
• talking about what she’s pointing at, if she points
• praising her if she waves, and waving back.

It’s good to leave a gap after you’ve responded to your baby. This teaches your baby about the ‘serve and return’ pattern of conversation. If your baby doesn’t take a turn, or isn’t interested in chatting right now, you can try again another time. Let your baby’s interest and responses guide you.

Lots of parents feel a bit silly talking to a little baby who doesn’t talk back. The more you talk with your baby, the easier it becomes – and you’ll be rewarded with your baby’s responses. The way you respond, however silly, will help your baby learn to communicate.

The main thing is to create a loving, warm feeling between you and your baby. You can use simple, enjoyable interactions and play to encourage your baby’s talking and language skills.

0 to 6 months

• Hold your baby close and look at them as you talk to them. Babies love faces and will watch you and respond as you talk.
• Chat about what you’re doing as you feed, change and bathe them.
• Sing to your baby – this helps them tune in to the rhythm of language.
• Repeat the sounds your baby makes back to them – this teaches your baby lessons about listening and taking turns in a conversation.
• Talk in a sing-song voice – this helps to keep your baby’s attention.

6 to 12 months

• Name and point to things you can both see, for example, “Look, a cat”. This will help your baby learn words and, in time, they’ll start to copy you. As your baby gets older, add more detail, such as, “Look, a black cat”.
• Start looking at books with your baby – you do not have to read the words on the page, just talk about what you can see.
• Only offer a dummy when it’s time for sleep. It’s hard to learn to talk with a dummy in your mouth. Aim to stop using dummies completely by 12 months.
• Play games like “peek-a-boo” and “round and round the garden”. This teaches your baby important skills like taking turns, paying attention and listening.

12 to 18 months

• If your child is trying to say a word but gets it wrong, say the word properly. For example, if they point to a cat and say “Ca!” you should respond with, “Yes, it’s a cat”. Do not criticize or tell them off for getting the word wrong.
• Increase your child’s vocabulary by giving them choices, such as, “Do you want an apple or a banana?”.
• Toys and books that make a noise will help your child’s listening skills.
• Enjoy singing nursery rhymes and songs together as your baby grows, especially those with actions, such as “Pat-a-cake”, “Row, row, row your boat” and “Wind the bobbin up”. Doing the actions helps your child to remember the words.

18 to 24 months

• Repeat words, for example, “Where are your shoes?”, “Are you wearing blue shoes today?” and “Let’s put your shoes on”. Repetition helps your child to remember words.
• Use simple instructions – your child will understand some instructions at this age, such as “Get your coat” or ‘”Shut the door”. Keeping instructions short and simple will help your child understand.
• Try asking “Where’s your…” – ask your child to point to their ear, nose, foot, and so on.
• Limit your child’s daily TV time to no more than 30 minutes for children younger than 24 months. Playing and listening to stories is more helpful when they’re learning to talk.

2 to 3 years

• Help them build sentences – your child will start to put simple sentences together at around age 2. Try to reply using sentences that are a few words longer. For example, if they say, “sock off”, respond with “yes, we’re taking your sock off”.
• Get your child’s attention by saying their name at the start of a sentence. If you ask a question, give them plenty of time to answer you.
• Teach them about words that go together – for example, you could show them a ball, teddy and a rattle and then say the word ‘toy’.
• Start using sounds with meaning (symbolic sounds), like saying “whoops” or “uh-oh” when you drop something accidentally, or saying “meow” while showing them a picture of a cat.
• Switch off the television and radio – background noise makes it harder for your child to listen to you.
• Talk as you clean – children this age love to help. Chat about what you’re doing as you do chores like shopping, cooking and cleaning together.