1 – 3 YEARS

At 18 months: Your toddler is a real parrot who repeats everything she hears. She has a vocabulary of between five and 20 words but is also crazy about having mock conversations with real inflection, so that it sounds like an adult talking – just listen to her banging on over the telephone! She can follow simple orders, such as, “Pass mom the cup please.” Look at pictures together, and talk about what you see. If she says something, elaborate: so if she says, “juice”, you can say, “Would you like some juice?” Take her on outings so that she can build a vocabulary to describe the world out there. Two years: This is an exciting year for your child’s language development, and you’ll have a good laugh at what she says. Somewhere around two there’s a language explosion and before long, your toddler will boast with a vocab of 150 to 300 words. She can name various objects and will combine words in short phrases, such as “baby sits” and “there mommy”. She starts using pronouns such as “I” and “mine”, and already uses two prepositions such as “on” or “in”. She’ll react to instructions such as, “Show me your eyes”.

Make her sentences longer. When she says “Baby sits”, say “Baby sits on her mat.” Rather use adult than baby language. Recite nonsense rhymes, play word games and sing word songs such as “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”.