06/16/2026
🚩 Speech & Language Milestones: First Words Around Age 1
At 12 months, most children only have 1–3 words.
That surprises a lot of parents.
We often expect speech to happen first, but language actually starts long before words.
Before children can talk, they learn to:
👆 Point to things they want
🤲 Reach for or bring you objects
🗣️ Babble using different sounds
👋 Use gestures like waving or raising their arms to be picked up
These skills are not “pre-speech” skills—they ARE communication.
Those first words are often names of important people (Mama, Dada, Nana, Papa) or favorite things (ball, dog, milk).
Every child develops at their own pace, but communication is growing every day through play, interaction, and connection.
💙 Keep talking.
💙 Keep reading.
💙 Keep responding to their attempts to communicate.
Speech is already developing, even if it doesn’t sound like much yet.
