Speak and language?I read by 18 months a child should be saying 5 words.What do they mean by words?Does mama?

Question

dada count.? Can anyone give me example's of types of words saying?What has everyone else experienced or read as far as speech?My son is 14 months and only says mama, dada and other types of sounds.

Answer 1

Mama and dada for sure, and any other recognizable word.

I hope you're not worrying about it unneccesarily. Advice like that is a generality that does not apply to everyone verbatim. Every child is not the same as every other. He may do it sooner. He may do it later. It does not necessarily mean there is anything exceptional about him--unless he ends up being very late.

The other thing is that just because 18 months is the target, it doesn't mean that there is going to be a steady continuum of his learning; one word at 12 months, another word at 13 months, a third at 14 months etc. During his 17th month he could suddenly come out with 2 or 3 new ones.

This applies to his future schooling as well, by the way. School boards like to set targets and say things like, by the end of grade 1 he should be able to... Again, everyone is different, and some kids may not be able to ____ by the end of grade 1, but later they may suddenly get it and catch up very quickly and may even surpass their peers. Until then, this kind of benchmarking makes life stressful for kids and parents.

I would only worry about extreme variations from the norm.

:)

Answer 2

i think mama would count as a word. your child is 14 months and the study said 18 so i'm sure he'll be there by then (children develop so fast at that age) either way thats only an avg. not all children are at the same point at the same time. normal baby words depend on your child. my nephew started out with words like kitty (we had alot of cats). i wouldnt worry it sounds like your child is doing well for his age. and the above answerers are quite right, basically anything can count as a word as long as it has a meaning

Answer 3

My daughter will be 18 months old tomorrow. when she was 13, 14, and even 15 months, she did not say much........at all. Maybe like 5 or 6 words.....somewhere in the past month or so she just took off........she can point out pictures in books and name them (apple, ball, horse, kitty, dog, trees, flower, ladybug........the list goes on and on) she probably knows a good 50 words at least. Mama, dada, pap-pap, grandma.....she can say names of everyone she sees regularly...she will repeat ANYTHING she hears.....names, things......it is funny. She knows what he doggy says (she will make arf arf noises) and she can identify the color purple. she says "thank you" and even bless you. and my dad was thrilled that she can do the penalty call for "holding" by grabbing her one forearm with one little hand.......we were in the grocery store and they had a huge yellow M&M display...she kept saying "bop-bob" over and over.....she thought it was spongebob which cracked me up because she does not even watch that show!

I was really worried up until now. she seemed so.......behind. she did not walk til almost 15 months, did not crawl til the later part of the 9th month, was late sitting up on her own and barely talked til about 16.5 or 17 months........then, like I said, she just took off......it was like something in her head clicked and she realized that everything has names and all those words mean something........ever since she has been a talking machine. her words are not always clear......sunglasses sounds like "ada-sess", cup comes out "bup".........things like that. But she knows what she is saying. And I am pretty good at catching on.

Answer 4

Yes, mama and dada count. Basically any word the baby says consistently and you know what it means.

My 19-month old son, btw, only says "Doggy". And we don't even have a dog.

Answer 5

My cousin's daughter said no words clearly (not even Mama) until she was about 21 months old. She just babbled baby babble. Then just after turning two, she started saying Mama and Daddy. Within 2 months after that she was chattering away with very clear diction (which amazes me as she even pronounces her 't's clearly, something Minnesotans don't do).

Answer 6

it is perfectly fine them count as words and should improve as they get older. My daughter is 5 yrs and has a speech delay she's in intensive speech therapy to get her caught up for next year we noticed her delay at around 2 1/2yrs I would give it some time.

Answer 7

A word is a word, the only difference between babbling and speaking is intent. So if the baby says "goo" but you know he means "dog" that's a word.

Answer 8

dont stress if he is only child he may take longer. those graphs and charts are BS. each child learns and develops differently. just love your son read him stories he will be fine

Answer 9

Sounds normal, 'baby' words is perfectly acceptable.