In the first twelve months of life, your baby will go from a tiny newborn to a little person with their own ideas. It is an exciting time of rapid changes—for you and your little one! This article provides a list of the typical speech and language milestones most children will achieve in their first year.
Play milestones:
Engage in solitary play (play on their own)
Laugh during play
Enjoy simple and interactive games such as peek-a-boo
Clap when prompted
Extend toys to others
Imitate an adult's actions
Show interest in playing with different objects
Around 9 months, start relational play where they enjoy putting objects inside other objects, and repeating over
Around 8 months, will begin to look for a toy that is out of sight (object permanence)
Social milestones:
Smile in response to a smile from the caregiver
Follow the caregiver's gaze and demonstrate joint attention (paying attention to an object at the same time as the caregiver)
Are interested in what the caregiver points to
Seek comfort from a caregiver and seem to be comforted by the caregiver's voice
Look at and are interested in faces and voices
Differentiate facial expressions and tones of voice (e.g., sad, angry, happy)
Imitate sounds, actions, and gestures (e.g., waving bye, clapping)
Participate taking turns through babbling
Express feelings through vocalizations or gestures
Speech milestones
Coo, grunt, babble, and make other noises
Begin to babble longer strings of the same sounds (bababa, mamama)
Expressive language milestones:
Use gestures to make requests for items and actions (e.g., up, no) and to direct attention (i.e., to show someone something)
Imitate speech sounds
Use their first word by one year, usually “hi”, “mama”, “dada”
Receptive language milestones:
Turn when their name is called and toward the direction of sounds
Understand the words for common items and people (e.g., mommy, daddy, cup)
Start to respond to simple words and phrases (e.g., “no”, “more?”)
It is important to remember these are milestones for most children at this age, but each child develops at their own rate. However, if your child has not met a significant number of these milestones or if you are concerned with your child's development, please see your family doctor who can do a thorough assessment and suggest next steps.
We offer speech and language assessments and therapy for children of all ages.
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