Birth to 18 Months

How Communication Develops from Birth to 18 Months

In the beginning your baby will be:

• interested in people’s faces and voices.

By 6 weeks your baby will be trying to:

• smile and make some sounds.

By 3 months your baby will be trying to:

• chuckle and laugh when they’re happy.
• make cooing noises using “aaah” and “oooh”.
• enjoy listening to sounds around them.
• look at someone speaking, to show they’re interested.

By 6 months they might:

• recognise words they hear a lot e.g. “bye-bye”.
• stop what they’re doing when they hear “no”, then start doing it again.
• try to start chatting to you by making sounds – “mamama” and when you copy them, they may try again.

By 9 months old your child might be:

• babbling with long strings of sounds.
• copying the sounds you make.
• copying an action for a song e.g. rocking for “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.

When your child reaches their first birthday, they might be trying to:

• sing along with a song.
• shake their head to say “no”.
• understand their own name and some other words e.g. “cup” at snack time.
• point to tell you what they want.

It’s amazing, but by 18 months your toddler will probably try to:

• say a few words.
• look to people and objects when you name them.
• make some animal noises e.g. “moo” or “baa”.
• use a word or words when singing a song.

How You Can Help

Chat about your day using short phrases – “We’re going on a bus”, “Mummy’s putting the clothes away”.

Have some time every day for play:

• Switch off the TV and radio – so it’s quiet when you play.
• Look to see what your child is playing with and join in.
• Copy the sounds and words they say -then they know you are listening.
• Enjoy sharing a book with your child.
• Sing songs and rhymes together e.g. “Round and round the garden”.