12 month language milestones

Do you have a baby around the age of 12 months? Here are some milestones to keep in mind around that first year.

Receptively we want baby to:

-Turn and look in the direction of sounds.

-Look when you point.

-Turn when you call their name.

-Understand words for common items, people, and phrases like “No,” “Come here”

-Play social games, like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake.

-Listen to songs and stories for a short time.

Expressively we want baby to:

-Babble long strings of sounds

-Use sounds and gestures to get and keep attention.

-Point to objects and show them to others.

-Use gestures like waving bye or reaching for “up"

-Imitate different speech sounds.

-Say 1 or 2 words

We look for 1 or 2 words around their first birthday. Does your child need to have ALL of these items? No they don’t, but we really want to see majority of them. Here are some reasons I would want to look into an evaluation in order to support the child:

 doesn’t babble with changes in tone – e.g. dadadadadadadadada

doesn’t use gestures like waving “bye bye” or shaking head for “no”

doesn’t respond to her/his name

doesn’t communicate in some way when s/he needs help with something

If you feel like your child has 1 or 2 of these signs for an eval, reach out to your local SLP. It never hurts to chat or get checked out!

Follow along @eat.talk.grow on instagram for ways to increase speech and language skills!

(ASHA, 2023).