How many words at 18 months?

[HotI]

How many words does your 18 month old have?

[Strawman]

Not many! Mine can say Mum, dada and no (doesnt say no clearly though).

The toddlers in my mothers group (all born within 6 weeks of each other) are all saying a lot more words than mine.

Our GP at 12 months (when he had no words) was recommending speech therapy. At our 18 month check up the GP was not concerned at all. I have had my DS added to the local community health speech therapy clinics waiting list anyway, although my family and friends think I'm crazy for doing so.

[Amaunet]

More than 30. All the usual (mum, dad, yes, no, more, mine, apple, toast, ball, car, shoes, socks, baby, balloon, door, knock, eye, ear, nose, arm, knee, doodle, chin, hair, foot, bye, hooray, chair, Nana, Pa, please) Ds2 is almost 19 months and I've noticed a speech explosion in the last 2-3 months. He has new words every day and is starting to put words together into 2-3 word sentences. My Ds1 was closer to 2 before his speech took off.

[Jellyfish]

DD2 was 18mo yesterday and has quite a lot now that I think about it, around 30+ too. A few groups of words like love you, see ya and ready, set, go. She also has about 10 signs which we began from birth due to our journey with DD1. I wouldn't be worried to the point of seeking a professional till around 2 though if things were different because coming from the experience of my DD1 having speech therapy from 2.5 (where she had no verbal words) till now there is not much you can really do before they have the concentration and motivation to participate and it is the average point of word explosion but if you need to go public it might be worth getting your name in now in case of long waiting lists. I would also consider looking into signing as that is a great first step to bridging any communication gaps in the meantime.

[Calluna]

Ds had about 5 until just before he turned 2 then suddenly exploded with single words. He was nearly 3 before he started constructing his own (ie not copied/memorised) sentences.
Theyre all so different. I was so stressed out about it.

[~Kim~]

I'll list them and we can count.
Mummy!
Darcy
Nate (Date)
Dad
ball
bye
baby
mana (banana)
seed (feed)

She ties to say others but they don't sound like they should and she more parrots.

DS had less. Maybe 3-4.

[~Hestia~]

Not a lot. Buster was 18 months last month and I was a little worried as I read that at this age they average about 50 words! But when we saw the MCHN she said it's more like 5 - 10

Mumma
Dadda
Bubba
Peter
See ya
Bye bye
Hello
Cheers
That
Ball, or his version at least
Moo
Ta
Raa
Yep
Book

Think that's it, maybe a few more animal noises.

[peanutter]

It varies tremendously.

DS1 had probably 200 words by 18 months - he was formidable.

DS2 is 16 months, and has perhaps 20 words, and only 10 which he uses regularly (mummy, uh oh, hi, hello, dadda, oh no, bye bye, etc).

Very clever, but not very verbal at this point. Just different.

[Santosha]

Both my kids have had in the hundreds by then, but are both quite precocious verbally (not so much on the motor front ). I remember that the rest in my mother's group had between 3 and 50 and the one that had 3 didn't have many more than that by 2. They're all now just over 4 and you'd barely know there had been a difference in their language development except that my DD is still quite a chatterbox and the little guy who had 3 words would rather be up a tree or kicking a ball. When he wants to, he can express himself perfectly well, though I've noticed that he's still mastering a few sounds.

Language development seems to be incredibly uneven but should 'level out' by three-ish. What is of greater importance in development at this age is communication. This means all the non-verbal stuff used to share ideas, draw attention, show mutual enjoyment, reciprocal emotion and to get needs met.

[chody47]

DD1 had several hundred by that age. She was putting up to 5 word sentences together and could sing entire songs (eg old McDonald, ABCs).

[Razzberry]

My son sees a speechie for feeding issues and she said by 18 months they expect to have about 20 words give or take 2 months either side. My sons high risk of speech issues due to sensory oral motor control problems so is being watched closely. He has about 10 words and is 15.5 months.

[Heaven]

Same as chody. Both mine have been 'talkers' and they had a couple of hundred words at least by then. They were speaking in sentences, answering questions, and singing songs etc. There is just a huge variety I think and it happens all of a sudden, mine just seemed to get to the 'word explosion' stage earlier.

[wysiwyg]

Both my have had in the hundreds by then, but are both quite precocious verbally (not so much on the motor front ). I remember that the rest in my mother's group had between 3 and 50 and the one that had 3 didn't have many more than that by 2. They're all now just over 4 and you'd barely know there had been a difference in their language development except that my DD is still quite a chatterbox and the little guy who had 3 words would rather be up a tree or kicking a ball. When he wants to, he can express himself perfectly well, though I've noticed that he's still mastering a few sounds.

Language development seems to be incredibly uneven but should 'level out' by three-ish. What is of greater importance in development at this age is communication. This means all the non-verbal stuff used to share ideas, draw attention, show mutual enjoyment, reciprocal emotion and to get needs met.

Same here with both mine, very good verbally not so good in other areas (as MCHN said when she asked me and I said I didn't know, if you don't know how many they can say, then they most likely have loads because you have never felt the need to count them). At DD's MG there were massive variations - the boys especially didn't seem to use many words until well over 2 - now they are all four and are all pretty much the same. I was expecting DS to be very different to DD in terms of speech development just because of the difference between the boys and girls in MG and other anecdotal evidence but he is the same.

[raffy]

Ds2 attempts anything we say so all the usual ones he's just starting to string a couple of words together to, tonight he said 'love you' for the first time

[Taurean]

A couple of hundred at a guess. She's quite the chatterbox, a lot like her older sister. She knows the tune to several songs too and throws in the words she knows - that spins everyone out, us included!

[sepata]

Not very many, and even now at 2 he still doesn't have very many. Maybe 10-15 or so? Not sure I've never counted. He comprehends a lot though, he just hasn't worked out how to say things yet

[PumpkinZulu]

At 18 months, probably around 50. Now at just over 2, hundreds! Huge explosion over the last few months.

[meow]

I know the MCHN checklist with my DS1 was aiming for 10 words at 18 months. He had over 100. He then later developed autism and he didn't make a 2 word sentence till he was about 3. Counting words at 18 months as a sign of language development is therefore a waste of time in my opinion.