What do you count as "words"?

[katelove]

So I read posts on here about babies not much older than my LO who have 20-75 words. My nearly-16 mo doesn't have *nearly* that many. I just counted and she has 10 (including "uh oh"). However, I didn't count her animal sounds because they aren't words as such. Am I short-changing her? 

I should add, I'm not worried about her language development. I'm more interested to know what "counts" as a word. So, how do you count your baby's words? And, if you like, how old are they and how many words do they have?

[crunchy_mommy]

My DS is 2.5 and very verbal so we are long past the word-counting stage. But I think at 16mos he had a lot of words (stopped counting when we reached 50 words at 14mos). I believe the number to look out for is about 10 words by 18mos, so your DD has already surpassed that.

Most of his words were just regular words (kitty, clock, shoe, short phrases like "uh-oh drop cup") but I did count anything he consistently used with the same intent. So I counted animal sounds if he used them to identify the animal, and I counted words that didn't sound remotely like what he used them for (i.e. "bloo" for spoon). We didn't do signs but I think most people count signed words too. Really, it doesn't matter how you count, it's only for your own reference, no one is going to audit your word list lol.

[nstewart]

I don't really keep count of DS's words, but I count things that are "words" to him.  For example, he's started trying to make a pssss sound when I cue him to go pee.  I would also count animal sounds as he seems to either say the name for an animal or the sound the animal makes, but not both.  So even though he understands "sheep" he only says "baaa" and although he understands "meow" he only says "sam" (our cat's name is Sam, so every cat is a "Sam". lol).

If I had to guess, I think he has about 2 dozen words or so.

[Anna Phor]

Does the kid use the same sounds (or sign) to consistently refer to the same thing? Then it's a word. 

That's my definition. :)

[Asiago]

Originally Posted by Anna Phor 

Does the kid use the same sounds (or sign) to consistently refer to the same thing? Then it's a word. 

This is what I read in one of my books (perhaps Dr. Sears?). My son's word for 'I' or 'me' is Da. 

[Nicole730]

I count anything that I can recognize as being used more than once for the same thing.  My daughter is 18 months and she only recently branched out beyond her "I want Mama" and "Here you go", besides the other basics - Mama, Dada, Hi, etc..

[kylie1]

I use Anna's definition of words. My DD1 had about 45 or so words at 16 months, and my DD2 had...many, many more than a 16mo usually would 

My children are also multilingual (speaking English, French, Greek, an Aboriginal language, and DD1 and DSD are learning Japanese and Italian respectively at school) so that might help boost the wordcounts.