1 year

By the age of 1, your child should be able to:

UNDERSTANDING

• Smile when sees you

• Moves eyes in direction of sounds

• Responds to changes in tone of your voice

• Responds to their name

• Pays attention to music

• Enjoys games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake

• Listens when spoken to

• Recognizes words for common items (cup, book, shoe, spoon)

• Begins to respond to requests (come here, want more?)

• Responds to ‘no’, ‘wait’ and ‘stop’

• May point to objects or people

TALKING

• Babbling has both long and short groups of sounds (tata upup bibibibi)

• Uses speech or noncrying sounds to get and keep attention

• Uses gestures to communicate (waving, holding arms to be picked up)

• Imitates different speech sounds

• Has 5-10 (or more) consistent words (hi, dog, dada, mama) around first birthday, although sounds may not be clear

PLAY / PRE-VERBAL 

• Copies actions that an adult does

• Attempts to copy sounds that an adult makes

• Uses eye contact

• Is able to take turns in games

• Anticipates what will happen next in a game (in games such as round, round the garden and this little piggy)

WARNING SIGNS

• Little or no babbling

• Does not respond to familiar voices

• Shows no recognition of their own name

• Shows little or no recognitions of names of common people objects and action words+