Quick answer: there is a wide normal range, and most late talkers catch up. The signals worth acting on are not about how many words a child has, but about whether they are communicating at all, whether they understand you, and whether they are going backwards. If you are unsure, ask early. Nobody has ever regretted asking early.

Speech is where parent comparison gets brutal. Someone else's eighteen-month-old is producing sentences, yours has four words, and a small worry sets up camp. It usually gets worse if you go looking online at eleven at night.

So here is a calmer version, along with what we watch for after 37 years of preschool classrooms.

Roughly what to expect

Treat these as broad markers, not a test. Children hit them in different orders and at different speeds.

  • By 12 months: babbling with tune and rhythm, responding to their name, pointing at things they want you to look at, waving or gesturing.
  • By 18 months: some single words, following a simple instruction such as "get your shoes," clearly understanding much more than they say.
  • By 2 years: starting to put two words together, such as more juice or daddy gone. Family can often understand about half of what they say.
  • By 3 years: short sentences, asking questions, being understood by people outside the family a good deal of the time.
  • By 4 years: telling you about something that happened, using longer sentences, mostly clear to strangers even if some sounds are still developing.
  • By 5 years: telling a story with a beginning and an end, following multi-step instructions, holding a proper conversation.

Some sounds arrive late and that is fine. R, th, s blends and l often are not settled until six or seven.

What matters more than word count

When we look at a child in our rooms, we are not counting vocabulary. We are watching for four things:

  1. Are they communicating? A child with few words who points, pulls you to things, shows you objects and shares attention is doing the fundamental job. Communication precedes speech.
  2. Do they understand? Comprehension usually runs well ahead of production. A child who follows instructions and responds appropriately to conversation is on solid ground.
  3. Are they trying? Attempts, approximations and made-up words are all good signs.
  4. Are they moving forward? Slow progress is common. No progress over several months, or losing skills they previously had, is a different matter.

Signs worth raising with a professional

Ask your doctor or a speech therapist if:

  • No babbling by around 12 months, or no gestures such as pointing and waving.
  • No single words by about 18 months.
  • No two-word combinations by around two and a half.
  • Your child does not seem to understand simple instructions.
  • Speech is so unclear at four that people outside the family cannot follow it.
  • Your child loses words or skills they used to have. This one always warrants a prompt conversation.
  • You have any concern about hearing, including frequent ear infections. Hearing is checked first for a reason.
  • Your gut says something is off. Parents are usually right, and early support is easy, cheap and effective.

Getting this checked is not a diagnosis and it is not a failure. In most cases the answer is reassurance. In the cases where it is not, early help works far better than later help.

What about bilingual children?

Growing up with two or more languages does not cause speech delay. This is one of the most persistent myths and it is worth putting down firmly.

Bilingual children may have fewer words in each individual language while having the same or more in total. They mix languages within a sentence, which is normal and not confusion. If you are counting words, count across both languages.

What is true is that a bilingual child with a genuine delay needs support in both languages, not the removal of one. Dropping the home language does not help and costs the family something real.

What builds language at home, every day

  • Talk while you do things. Narrate the cooking, the laundry, the bus ride. Ordinary running commentary is powerful input.
  • Wait longer than feels comfortable. Count five seconds after you ask something. Many children need that time, and adults almost always fill the gap.
  • Follow their lead. Talk about whatever they are already looking at. Attention plus words is how words stick.
  • Expand, do not correct. If they say "dog run," you say "yes, the dog is running fast." They hear the correct version without being told they were wrong.
  • Ask open questions. What do you think happens next beats yes or no questions.
  • Read, sing and rhyme. Songs and rhymes carry sound patterns that ordinary speech does not.
  • Cut background noise. A television on in the corner measurably reduces the amount of talk in a room.

The reassuring part

Most children who are slow to start talking are simply slow to start talking. They arrive, often suddenly, and by the time they are seven nobody could pick them out of the class. In the meantime, the most useful thing you can do is keep talking with them, keep it enjoyable, and ask a professional if anything on the list above rings true.

Shaws Preschool has been building children's language through conversation, story, song and play across the East Coast and Serangoon since 1989, in English and Mandarin. Come and hear a classroom in full flow: book a tour.