How many words should my child be able to say?
Developmental milestones are skills or tasks that most (90%) of children perform within an age range. When we discuss speech milestones for how many words a child should use at that age, we are talking about the MINIMUM number of words they should be saying. However, you may have heard there is a range for the number of words a child should be saying, which is true, and we want to explain why!
Milestone vs. Average
First of all, milestones refer to what MOST kids are doing at a given age, meaning about 90% of kids can perform that skill. For example, when talking about an 18-month-old, about 90% of children at that age can say at least 10 words. That’s the milestone! What is important to note is that there are also averages for how many words a child should be saying. So, what is the difference? An average is what about 50% of children are doing at a certain age. The average 18-month-old is actually saying about 50 words, much more than the milestone!
What does this mean for parents?
All this talk about milestones versus averages probably has you wondering what it means for parents. Well, if a child is close to meeting a milestone but isn’t quite there, that may not seem like a big deal. Actually, it is! We have to remember that a milestone is really the low end of where we want kids to be, and many kids are actually doing much more. So, suppose your child isn’t quite meeting a milestone. In that case, it’s essential to reach out to your pediatrician and/or a speech-language pathologist to find out if intervention is recommended to boost your little one’s speech and language skills to get them within the range for their age.
Source:
American Speech-Language Hearing Association
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
