How does a zero to 12-month-old child hear, talk and play? Language and play skills go hand in hand. Children develop language, speech and play/social skills at their own rate. Your child may or may not acquire all of these skills until their first birthday.
Birth to three months old
Receptive language skills
Your child will:
- Be startled by loud sounds
- Be quiet or smile when you talk
- Seem to recognize your voice and quiet down if crying
Expressive language skills
Your child will:
- Make cooing sounds
- Vocalize to gain attention
- Cry differently for different needs
- Smile at people
Play/Social skills:
Your child will:
- Establish eye contact for a few seconds
- Smile when socially approached
- Play with a rattle
Four to six months old
Receptive language skills
Your child will:
- Move his or her eyes in the direction of sounds
- Respond to changes in your tone of voice
- Notice toys that make sounds
- Pay attention to music
- Reach for objects
- Bang objects together
Expressive language skills
Your child will:
- Coo and babble when playing alone or with you
- Make babbling sounds, like “pa,” “ba” and “ma”
- Giggle and laugh
- Make sounds when happy or upset
- Respond to his or her name
Play/Social skills
Your child will:
- Manipulate and explore objects
- Laugh in response to play
- Take turns vocalizing
Seven months to one year
Receptive language skills
Your child will:
- Turn and look in the direction of sounds
- Look when you point
- Turn when you call his or her name
- Understand words for common items and people, like “cup,” “car,” “juice” and “mommy”
- Start to respond to simple words and phrases, like “no,” “come here,” “want more” and “give me”
- Listen to songs and stories for a short time
- Want to be with people
- Wave “bye”
- Attend to pictures
- Begin to understand questions, like “where’s daddy?” and “look for him”
- Begin to understand directions, like “give me”
- Point to two body parts
Expressive language skills
Your child will:
- Use a few gestures to get and keep attention
- Participate in games with adults using gestures
- Participate in songs with adults by vocalizing
- Babble long strings of sounds, like “mimi,” “up” and “bababa”
- Perform and repeat actions for attention
- Imitate different speech sounds, like “moo” and “beep beep”
- Say one or two words, like “hi,” “dog,” “dada,” “mama,” and “uh-oh”
Play/social skills:
Your child will:
- Clap when prompted
- Spontaneously lift arms to parent
- Spontaneously extend toys to others
- Respond to facial expressions
- Play games with you, like “peek a boo” and “pat a cake”
- Search for hidden objects (object permanence)
- Shift his or her gaze between an object and an adult
- Play with toys without mouthing and banging them
- Imitate adult actions
- Resist removal of toys
- Play with toys purposefully (push car, stir with a spoon)
What Can You Do to Help Your Child at Home?
- Pay attention to ear problems and infections and arrange screening to rule out hearing loss
- Notice if your child turns his or her head towards noise or you when you are talking
- Talk to your child and imitate the sounds he or she makes
- Imitate actions like peek a boo, wave bye-bye, clapping hands and taking turns imitating
- Talk about things you see, what you do and who do they see
- Read every day to your child
- Teach animal and silly sounds
- Use your most comfortable language
