Most babies say their first meaningful word around 12 months old, though some start as early as 10 months. That first word is often “mama,” “dada,” or a simple label for something familiar. But talking doesn’t switch on like a light. It builds gradually from cooing and babbling in the first months of life to two-word phrases by age 2.
In 2022, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics revised their developmental milestone checklists so that each milestone reflects what at least 75% of children can do by a given age. The previous checklists used the 50th percentile, which meant half of all children hadn’t reached the milestone yet, and parents were often told to “wait and see.” The updated approach is designed to catch delays earlier.
Speech Milestones From 6 to 24 Months
Language development follows a fairly predictable path, even though the exact timing varies from child to child. Here’s what to expect at each stage.
6 months: Your baby starts making consonant sounds like “ga,” “ma,” and “ba.” These aren’t words yet, but they show the mouth and voice are working together. Babies at this age are also sitting up on their own, which frees their hands and eyes to explore objects while looking back at you. That back-and-forth loop of shared attention is one of the earliest foundations of communication.
9 months: Babbling gets more complex, with repeated strings like “mamamama” and “bababababa.” Your baby copies sounds you make, responds to their own name, and follows your gaze to look at the same thing you’re looking at. Between 9 and 12 months, babies begin pointing and vocalizing toward objects to get your attention. A child’s ability to engage in this kind of shared attention at 12 months predicts how quickly they’ll learn words later.
12 months: Most babies have one or two real words and know what they mean. “Mama” or “dada” now refers to a specific person rather than just being a sound. Your child can wave bye-bye, understand the word “no,” and follow a simple one-step command. They also understand common words like “cup,” “shoe,” or “juice,” even if they can’t say them yet.
18 months: A toddler at this age tries to say at least three words beyond “mama” and “dada.” They can point to a body part when asked, follow simple instructions like “roll the ball,” and understand basic questions like “where’s your shoe?” Vocabulary is growing fast, even though much of it is still hard for strangers to understand.
24 months: By age 2, most children speak about 50 to 100 words and are putting two words together into simple phrases like “more milk” or “more cookie.” This is a major leap, because combining words means your child is starting to build sentences rather than just labeling things.
Understanding Comes Before Speaking
One thing that surprises many parents is how much a baby understands long before they can say anything. Between 7 and 12 months, babies already recognize words for everyday items and can follow simple directions. This gap between understanding language (receptive language) and producing it (expressive language) is completely normal and often quite wide.
If your 14-month-old only says one word but clearly understands dozens, that’s a healthy sign. Children who comprehend what’s said to them are building the mental vocabulary they’ll draw on once their mouth and tongue coordination catches up. The concern is greater when a child doesn’t seem to understand language, not just when they’re slow to speak it.
Pre-Speech Skills That Matter
Talking gets most of the attention, but several non-verbal skills that develop between 6 and 12 months are just as important. Babies begin coordinating attention between a parent and an object, looking at something, then looking at you, then looking back. This shared focus is called joint attention, and it’s a building block for all later conversation.
By 9 to 12 months, babies initiate these moments on their own by pointing, reaching, or vocalizing toward something they want you to notice. Gestures like waving bye-bye and raising arms to be picked up count as communication too. If your child is using gestures and responding to your voice, their speech production is likely on track even if the words haven’t arrived yet.
What Counts as a Delay
Because the revised CDC milestones now reflect what 75% of children can do, a child who isn’t meeting a milestone is no longer in a gray area. Under the updated guidelines, missing a milestone is reason enough to screen for a possible delay rather than waiting to see if the child catches up.
Some specific red flags to watch for:
- By 12 months: No babbling, no attempts to imitate sounds, no words at all, no gestures like waving
- By 18 months: Fewer than three words beyond “mama” and “dada,” doesn’t point to things, doesn’t seem to understand simple requests
- By 24 months: Fewer than 50 words, no two-word combinations, speech that’s almost entirely unintelligible to caregivers
A delay in one of these areas doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. Some children are simply late talkers who catch up on their own. But early evaluation is the only way to tell the difference between a child who needs support and one who just needs more time.
Bilingual Families and Timing
A common worry in bilingual households is that exposing a baby to two languages will slow down speech. Research involving over 2,300 children found no significant difference between bilingual and monolingual babies in the age they started babbling, said their first word, reached 10 words, hit 50 words, or began combining words into phrases. Bilingual children hit every one of these milestones at the same age as their monolingual peers.
Bilingual toddlers may know fewer words in each individual language compared to a monolingual child, but their total vocabulary across both languages is comparable. If your child is growing up with two languages and seems to be meeting the milestones above, there’s no reason to drop one language in hopes of speeding things up.
How Early Intervention Works
If you have concerns, you don’t need to wait for a doctor’s referral. In every U.S. state, publicly funded Early Intervention programs provide free or reduced-cost evaluations for children under 3. You can call your state’s program directly and request an evaluation. For children 3 and older, the same type of evaluation is available through your local public elementary school’s special education office, even if your child doesn’t attend that school.
Eligibility is based on how your child performs during the evaluation, not on a diagnosis. Services can include speech therapy tailored to your child’s specific needs. Starting early matters because the brain is most responsive to language input in the first three years of life. Children who receive support during this window tend to make faster progress than those who begin services later.