One of the most exciting things about raising your child is their speech development. And it’s just normal for a parent to be curious about your toddler’s speech development when he or she hits two years old. They may have already mastered their first word at this age, and it’s pretty exciting to see what the next ones can be. Here’s How Many Words Should a 2-Year-Old Child Know?and a few other exciting bits that come in between.
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How Many Words Should a 2-Year-Old Child Know?
The Quick Answer
By this time, your toddler should more or less be dabbling 50 words more or less and speaking in phrases plus being able to put a couple of sentences together.
They should be able to say “more milk” or bye-bye, understand simple commands when it’s directed to them, and can be understood by parents or their caregivers for say half the time. Of course, we always consider that every child grows, learns, and develops at their own pace.
Should you be concerned if your child does not exhibit any of the things we pointed out above? We’ll discuss that in a bit.
What to expect from your toddlers?
To better understand the speech development of our little ones, we have to comprehend how they communicate.
Well, toddlers around the age of one going two years old will tend to babble a few words that they may not even understand themselves. Maybe that’s why you can’t understand them too. They echo what they hear from grown-ups and their surroundings.
So what they say or how they communicate would then be in a mix of a few words or jargon. These are dozens of fragments of words with the intonation of an actual sentence that they are trying to imitate.
It’s also important to take note that at this stage, toddlers may be preoccupied with trying to walk too, so don’t panic should your child don’t precisely meet our benchmarks. They may also already understand the words or commands directed towards them even way before they can speak them; that’s just how their development goes. Learn teaching a 4-year-old at home.
Here is a list of common words that toddlers aged two should know:
- Mommy
- Daddy
- Baby
- Milk
- Bye-bye
- Thank you
- Yes
- No
- Juice
- Hello
- Ball
- Nose
- Eye
- Dog
- Cat
- Shoe
- Banana
- Cookie
- Bath
- Hat
- Book
- Car
- Hot
- More
- All gone
As you can see, these are everyday words that they hear from you. That’s specifically food, common expressions, and the people or things or animals surrounding them.
More on the speech development of a 2-year-old
As the age most used to track the development of a child’s speech, a two-year-old should do a few other things.
- Expand their vocabulary
- Link together words
- Even use pronouns
- Identify objects as well as body parts
Vocabulary
As mentioned above, at this stage, your toddler should already be speaking 50 words or more. It’s just the most exciting year for speech development, and the vocabulary boost in the subsequent months would be expected; plus, he or she should always be repeating the words they hear from you.
Linking words
Also, they should be linking words together at this stage. “My milk” or “dog go” should be good examples. For parents, take note that pronunciation won’t exactly be your two-year-olds strong suit at this point. About 50% of what they’ll say should be understandable.
Pronouns
Pronouns aren’t just words for your toddlers. It means that they will understand what it means to say “you or me.” Don’t expect them to know that Mom is a she and not a he, though, but sooner rather than later, they should get the hang of it. It’s going to be fun and cute.
Identifying body parts and objects
Nose, ears, and mouth are common body parts that they should already know how to identify. Please note that again, they know what these are way before they can say what they are. So there could be a lot of points as opposed to intelligible words.
They should also point to the right objects on pictures like a car or a cat.
Aged two and older, what to expect?
As they get to the age of three, little by little, your toddler will be a chatterbox. They should speak a few sentences, and you should understand at least 75% of them. Now at the age of 3, you can somewhat naturally converse with your child.
They can also string multiple words together that may surprise you for a bit and choose the right words. They may also follow two-part requests like please take off your shoes and please put them on that shelf.
Encourage speech development
So what if there’s a little bit of delay and your toddlers aren’t like other children who like to talk? How do you encourage their speech development? Here are a few things to try and take note of.
Kids at this age are like sponges; they store what you say at quite a rate you’d never expect. Running commentaries will be super useful at this stage, so you could teach them how to speak and identify stuff correctly at the same time. Say, “Do you want milk?” while pointing at the object to direct their eyes, attention, and stimulate learning.
Gestures are essential at this stage, and we should practice them and be patient with our toddlers. Toys, self-discovery, and stimulating activities are also welcome to encourage your toddler’s speech development.
While pronunciation is not essential at this stage, please always do so yourself. Again, communication is vital to help them out.
When should I consult my physician for potential speech development issues?
Given that your toddler should already have hit a few speech milestones at age two, you should detect some signs that you need to maybe speak to your physician about potential issues.
Take your situation into consideration. Does the child have limited social interaction, restricted interests, or maybe patterns? If it alarms you, then take your kid to your doctor. Sometimes hearing problems are discovered as a culprit for delayed speech development. Please comment below as experienced from your own How Many Words Should a 2-Year-Old Child Know?