Let’s Talk About Toddlers! How Speech and Language Develops From 1-2 years Of Age

Toddlers continue to rapidly develop speech and language skills through their everyday environments.  They are constantly exposed to speech and language models through listening to others around them speak, through play, and reading books with parents and caregivers. 

By 1-2 years of age toddlers can begin to develop vocabulary (an understanding of words) by pointing to body parts when asked, pointing to pictures in books when asked and using many new words. They can also follow simple one step directions such as “get your shoes”.  

Toddlers usually love listening to simple stories, songs and rhymes.  Rhymes are an excellent way of developing pre-literacy skills.  Rhyming builds an awareness of how sounds can be manipulated to form different words.  This awareness is referred to as phonological awareness and is a building block to reading skills. 

Toddlers will also begin to start speaking many new words.  Remember, some toddlers may start speaking words early, and others may start using words a little later; this is all in the normal range! Toddlers will name pictures in books and begin putting two words together.  They will start asking simple questions such as “What’s that?” and “Where’s doggy?”.  

At this age, when a Toddler begins using words and phrases, it is perfectly normal to make sound errors such as “wing” for “ring” or “wam” for “Lamb”.  They may substitute sounds such as  /g/ and /v/ with other sounds, for example,  “doddy” for “doggy” or “ban” for “van”.  This is perfectly normal at this age, as some sounds are more difficult to learn than others.  In good time, they will develop these sounds.  

Here a few easy things parents and caregivers can do to provide a language rich environment to facilitate speech and language development for their toddlers (Suggested by the American Speech & Hearing Association):

• Talk to your child as you do things and go places. For example, when taking a walk, point to and name what you see. Say things like, “I see a dog. The dog says ‘woof.’ This is a big dog. This dog is brown.”

• Use short words and sentences that your child can imitate. Use correct grammar.

• Talk about sounds around your house. Listen to the clock tick, and say “t-t-t.” Make car or plane sounds, like “v-v-v-v.”

• Play with sounds at bath time. You are eye-level with your child. Blow bubbles, and make the sound “b-b-b-b.” Pop bubbles, and make a “p-p-p-p” sound. Engines on toys can make the “rrr-rrr-rrr” sound.

• Add to words your child says. For example, if she says “car,” you can say, “You're right! That is a big red car.”

• Read to your child every day. Try to find books with large pictures and a few words on each page. Talk about the pictures on each page.

• Have your child point to pictures that you name.

• Ask your child to name pictures. He may not answer at first. Just name the pictures for him. One day, he will surprise you by telling you the name.

• Talk to your child in the language you are most comfortable using.

Having an understanding of how speech and language develops in a child's first years will help parents and caregivers be aware if  their child’s speech and language development is not up to expectations.  Speech-language pathologists are experienced working with babies, toddlers and school aged children.  As an SLP, I have used telemedicine speech therapy to work with very young, “early intervention” children in underserved areas.  While in-person, play based therapy is optimal for toddlers, I am thankful that they had access to speech therapy and have seen many improvements.