Speech Developmental Sequences 12-18 Months

There may be a delay in further speech development as baby learns to walk between 1 and 2 years of age. They may concentrate their energy on learning to become mobile and may not be able to work on two activities at once. When baby does use his language, it may be inarticulate. Baby may omit first or last consonant sounds in words or use sounds that do not necessarily replicate the correct sounds of the word. Articulation requires maturation and practice so it will come with time. As baby experiments with language, she may have conversations with people or inanimate objects with good inflection, rhythm and rate. She may begin to use single words or multiple words placed together to form short phrases or sentences. In addition to using exclamatory expressions, baby may begin to sing along to music and use language to greet people. To get his needs met, he may use gestures, sounds or words to communicate and will start understanding more of what is being said to him.

During this developmental sequence, the following suggestions may be used in conjunction with the previous suggestions to help stimulate language development in the toddler:

• Give baby words to go with her gestures when asking for something.
• Do not correct baby directly for their mispronunciations and inarticulateness. Instead, model appropriate use of language indirectly.
• Do not pronounce the word the way the child does. Baby thinks he is saying it correctly and may be confused if you mispronounce it.
• Play with different inflections while talking to baby.
• Interpret baby’s utterances for her and give her words.
• Avoid asking for a response directly (“What’s this?”) and instead, describe the object and try to elicit a response naturally.
• Use appropriate greeting words when leaving or coming as a model for baby (“Hi!”, “Hello”, “Bye-bye”).
• Give baby opportunities to sing and dance to music.
• Do not anticipate baby’s needs. Give baby the desire to communicate her needs.
• Describe and name the object baby is pointing to or gesturing to.



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