When Will My Baby Talk?

Learning a new language is a daunting task, which can make you wonder how babies seem to do it so easily. Born with no understanding of any language or grammatical structure, most children take just four years to learn their mother tongue fluently.

Language is an incredibly complex system,  so to learn it in four years is a remarkable feat. It’s also an incredibly powerful system, and an important part of your baby’s development.

The average baby doesn’t start using words until they’re about 12 months old, but language development begins long before that first word. In that first year of life babies learn a lot about sounds, words, and grammar they will use for subsequent language development.

From birth to one year old, children change the way they communicate by learning a repertoire of different sounds. By six months most babies know their own name, and by eight to ten months they recognise a few words even if they aren’t speaking them yet.
The second year is an important year for language development, with a range of developmental processes going on. “Word spurts”, where up to 50 words at a time are learnt, develop their working vocabulary from one word at the beginning of the year to 300 words by the end of the year. Two-year-olds learn to combine these words, and show a real desire to be more communicative. You’ll find their speech is more relevant and more frequent as they strive to articulate their new sounds more coherently.

The biggest change you’ll notice in the third year of life is the development of grammar. They’ll move on from the two or three word declarative sentences from their toddler years to full sentences, including questions and sentences. All this time they are getting better at articulating an ever-growing vocabulary. By the end of the third year, children are aware that words are made up of different sounds and are beginning to show an appreciation for rhymes. As they move into their fourth year, they’ll be able to weave short accounts about their day into conversations.

For most children, the fourth year is really a consolidation of the previous years. At this age, children are refining and developing the skills they’ve already learnt and are making further headway on their grammar. Complex, multi-clause sentences draw on an ever-widening vocabulary, and are articulated with more precision. As kids move from a home to school environment they learn to use language in different ways, and begin to learn how we represent the spoken word in text.

For all intents and purposes, language acquisition is completed in that fourth year of life, although language skills will continue to develop in every domain in subsequent years. Children develop at different rates, especially if they are exposed to more than one language at home.

If you’re worried about your own child’s language development, speak to your local health care provider who will find you the services you need or allay your fears if necessary.

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