How many spoken words at 1 year old? - Page 2

[nerdmomma6885]

Quote:

I think a good chance why this is true (that you *hear* about gifted kids either being early talkers or late talkers ) is because it is noteworthy.  I think, when reading about people's experiences, you tend to see a lot of extremes.  Not because there is necessarily a lot of extreme behavior, but because when there is it is commented upon.

If you just look through the threads on MDC, you'd assume that there are tons and tons of kids who potty train at 12 months or potty train at 5 years.  I think both of those situations are actually pretty rare, but when they happen it is more likely the parent would mention it.  I know I generally post asking for input when something is out of the ordinary.  I'm not going to come on and say, "Guess what my child had their first word at 12 months, walked at 13 months, potty trained at 2.5, etc..."  because it is so easy to find support/input on those occurrences IRL.  Its when your child is doing something far outside of the norm (either early or late) that you are more likely to talk/write/question about it.

I would expect that most gifted children would be *on average* early talkers--- simply because gifted children, by definition, are advanced compared to their same aged peers.  That said, there is a HUGE range of "normal" (using the term normal statistically here) so you are going to see gifted children who do anything quite early and quite late.

That's true... like my first DD wasn't toilet trained until she was 4 or 5 even though we spent years trying to get her to be toilet trained finally, and I asked my doctor if this was bad, because you know that's an awfully long time to not be completely toilet trained.

Oh, andi'm sorry if this is a little off subject,  but at my DDs' school, the sixth grade were learning about child prodigies and comparing them to early man (I think...), and there was this one about a girl who became a college professor at age 24, and one of the things that jumped out at me was that she was reading Charlotte's Web by age eight months, and I thought, "That's crazy! How can that happen!?!?" but it also made me wonder how her parents knew that. that must have meant she learned to talk at age 2 months or something- really abnormal, in my opinion.

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by ollyoxenfree 

I honestly have no idea at this point. This is one of those questions that makes me feel like a bad mother because I don't think I ever bothered to count, or if I did at the time, I didn't record it for posterity in a memorial book so it's lost in the mists of time and the blur of raising a family, attending a full-time professional post-grad university program and working part-time.

Don't feel bad -- I recorded it because I'm a linguist and I teach language development. So I obsessively recorded their words up and transcribed them into the international phonetics alphabet until about age 2 (when they were getting far too many for me to record. I have a much harder time recalling their motor milestones (except for sitting because both were exceptionally late -- ds was 9 months and dd was 8).

So, my obsessive recording resulted in charts like this that I can show my students. And since I know the data, I know that they were absolutely typical in terms of rate until they were about 2 1/2.

[tuesdaymom]

Hi  my dd had over 100 at 12 months.   I think it's not as what they can say but what they can comprehend.  She was comrehending well ove what she was saying and following directions @ 7 months.  She just turned 2 and a half and can have a conversation like you and I.    We don't know if she is gifted since she is still do young.  

[crunchy_mommy]

I have no idea how many words DS had at 1 because I didn't expect him to be talking yet!! I know he said some words and simple sentences around 9mos but I thought it was just random & wasn't really realizing that he was TALKING to me and had lots of words. I know by 18mos he had around 1000 words & was talking in regular sentences, and when he had an EI eval at 2 they said his language was at least at a 4yo level (that's as high as they could test). I have no idea if he's gifted, his fine motor skills and other milestones are also a few years ahead and he definitely has an... interesting... way of thinking, but his social and especially emotional development a bit behind (maybe actually at age level now after EI therapies). I guess I'd call him quirky. I really appreciate having an early talker because before he could converse with me he was just so miserable and cried 24/7. Being able to communicate with him made such a huge difference & kept me (him too, I think!) from going off the deep end...

[Just1More]

FTR- I don't know if my kids are gifted.  I post on this board occasionally trying to sort it out, but mostly I've concluded that figuring it out doesn't really matter at this point anyway.  It's just interesting to wonder.  They are, and always have been, significantly ahead of their peers.

On average (all 4 of them), they have all had 30-50 words by their first birthday.  At least half of those other people could easily understand.  A friend was asking her little boy a few weeks ago if he wanted some of the food she was eating.  Dd (right at 14mo at the time) held out her hand and said, "I want."  At 14 1/2 months, she is talking a lot.  If we really pay attention, we catch things like, "Christmas tree in there is pretty."  Or, "gonna go get breakfast."  Or, "baby in there."  She has a whole bunch of words, though I've lost track of how many.  With my first it was easy to pay attention, because I was the input.  With each child I've had, it has gotten harder, because they are learning to speak from the whole family. 

[leighi123]

Levi had 1 word at 12months, "da" which meant dad, dog, and duck.   But he knew at least 20 signs, probably more.   

At 15months he had well over 200 words, I tried to count but couldn't keep track.   He hasn't stopped talking sense!

[KaliShanti]

I never counted. He sure had his own language and never stopped talking but a lot was not very understandable. But a few months after his 2nd birthday,  he was speaking in huge paragraphs, using "big" words and everyone could understand him. He rarely made the same grammatical error twice. Ever since then, he has always been extremely verbally advanced.

[Stephenie]

I don't have a clue how many words my first had- more than I could count and he was using 3-4 word sentences regularly at his first birthday. The day he first walked, he announced it: "I go walk!" and walked across the room. This was about a week after he turned one. My 2nd took longer, but then exploded with language about 15 months. It's been suggested that both of them are gifted by multiple professionals, but no testing is done. I am pretty confident they are though, based on their advanced skills. 

[ellemenope]

I have no definitive count of words spoken at 12 months.  I want to say 17.   It was not a lot, and unremarkable.  And, then in her 18 month her spoken language exploded, and within a maybe 1.5 months, I could not count.  I estimated very early on we might be in the thousands.  I remember just counting kitchen vocabulary we were over 200.  She could say everything, and spoke in 10 word sentences regularly.  She was speaking like a mini adult by about 23 months old.  She is three now, still advanced in some areas but not yet gifted. Her verbal edge seems to be diminishing.  Or, maybe it is just harder to see now.  Or, maybe it has just translated into early literacy.  She is now a very solid early reader.

[Monkey Keeper]

My DD1 had about 10 words at a year but all were VERY clear, and she started putting 2 words together around 14m, I think? She was fully conversational with strangers by 18m with thousands of words, and by the time she turned 2, her speech was complex and quite adult-like.

DD2 had over 20 words at a year, and she still (at nearly 4y) has pronunciation issues, so we realize in hindsight she probably had more than that and was likely speaking in sentences long before we could identify them which was near they 18m mark. She is likely the brightest of my kids thus far.

DS is 15m now, and he used his first multi-word phrases before his 1st birthday. He also seems to have extremely strong receptive language skills. His speech is starting to take off now, and he regularly is using phrases, though like DD2 his is a bit difficult to understand.

[Mom2010]

If I was to say my DD has a ___ word vocabulary, does this mean words she knows, as in cat and points to cat?  or does this include words she has only said once, and words she uses, with no necissary recognition...like a "repeat" of a word I say at the end of  a sentance? Also, does MEOW or MOO count?  lol  I have been trying to figure out the answer to this for our DD, but don't know if I can acurately.  Also if she says, Do that over here...I guess I would seperate the sentance and count each word? If all of these count as words, I don't think I am really going to ever know.

Umm,  my DD has around 200 words she clearly and correctly uses everyday, and speaks in 4 (or more?) word sentances.  I'm guessing her "vocabulary" is much higher though sometimes I can't understand her and have to listen really hard.  She "talks" non stop - even if to her self - I really mean non stop.  If she is not talking she is singing.  She just turned 17 months. 

Edited by Mom2010 - 2/2/12 at 7:30pm

[nerdmomma6885]

Well, yeah. If you say "reindeer", then she could point to the antlers on her headband. an example from my kids. or if you say "shirt" and she looks at her shirt. It doesn't need to be talking actually, it can just be if she can figure out what you're saying. she says dog, points to the dog when it comes to actual word usage. umm i think animal noises would only count if she spontaneously associates it with the cat in conversation, like "the cat says meow", or if someone says cat and she instantly says meow to demonstrate her understanding of what that person said. I don't kow if counting words like that, do, etc. count as words even though they ARE words, if i did that then my DDs' vocab would be higher then. i think words of everyday object qualifies more as words like bee, book, mom, etc. 

[Mom2010]

Oh, wow.  That's a huge difference.  Thanks.  I think it might be a bit late for me to figure that out for DD.  But that is good to know for next time!

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by Mom2010 

If I was to say my DD has a ___ word vocabulary, does this mean words she knows, as in cat and points to cat?  or does this include words she has only said once, and words she uses, with no necissary recognition...like a "repeat" of a word I say at the end of  a sentance? Also, does MEOW or MOO count?  lol  I have been trying to figure out the answer to this for our DD, but don't know if I can acurately.  Also if she says, Do that over here...I guess I would seperate the sentance and count each word? If all of these count as words, I don't think I am really going to ever know.

Umm,  my DD has around 200 words she clearly and correctly uses everyday, and speaks in 4 (or more?) word sentances.  I'm guessing her "vocabulary" is much higher though sometimes I can't understand her and have to listen really hard.  She "talks" non stop - even if to her self - I really mean non stop.  If she is not talking she is singing.  She just turned 18 months. 

Well, when people measure vocabulary, they usually measure receptive and expressive vocabulary separately. The receptive vocabulary is always larger than the expressive one (that's true for adults as well as children). For receptive, if they recognize the object or the action or the quality when you say a word, they know the word. Receptive vocabulary is usually tested using pictures and asking kids to point to the picture of the word. The expressive version shows a picture and asks the child to name it. This works pretty well for kids over 2 or 2 1/2, but not very well with 1 year olds. So, most 1 year olds are 'tested' with parent check-lists of things that parents think the child understands or says (they turn out to be more accurate than you might think).

Anything that's a consistent form linked with a consistent meaning counts. So, ds' word for garbage truck at age 18 months was "gaga ga". I counted it as a word. His articulation sucked, but he labeled the concept appropriately, his intonation was spot on, and he was always accurate in the number of syllables. Buffalo was bushishi, helicopter was wawawawa (why I didn't use the easier "chopper" with him I'll never know). I don't know how many other people could recognize his early words ,but dh and I could and he communicated quite effectively. (His articulation is still iffy at age 10, especially now that he's lost most of his molars!)

Animal noises count too. Meow and moo and woof and oink all count. To use these words, you have to learn a form that's specific to your language (Swedish pigs say "nuf nuf" not "oink") and link it with a meaning "that's what this animal says". Usually words that are only said once aren't counted. If she's just imitating a word at the end of your sentence, and you don't think she knows what it means, then no, it wouldn't count.

On the other hand, repeating new words that you just use is one way children learn or reinforce words. Tonight dd (age 7) was describing the first Warrior Cats book to me, and she was describing how the leader cats would go to a certain place (sorry, I was driving and didn't catch where) to talk to the "Star Clan" which were cats that had died. She was explaining that the leaders go to these cats because "they probably would know what a good thing to do was". I responded "oh, so they were wise?" "Yes," she replied, "they were wise, heavenly cats." It was clear to me (from her intonation and because I know her) that dd had the concept, but couldn't find the word for it. She's heard "wise" before, but I don't know whether she's had to use it very often (if at all).

So to make a long answer longer -- there isn't a strict definition of a "word" (actually I just gave that lecture today!), and it's hard to measure vocabulary knowledge exactly. Heck, there isn't even an accepted number of words in English (or any language)! Do you measure "run" and "running" as different words? What about "treat" and "treatment"? "berate" and "rate"? (Ok I'm kidding for the last one!)

[Mom2010]

Originally Posted by LynnS6 

On the other hand, repeating new words that you just use is one way children learn or reinforce words. Tonight dd (age 7) was describing the first Warrior Cats book to me, and she was describing how the leader cats would go to a certain place (sorry, I was driving and didn't catch where) to talk to the "Star Clan" which were cats that had died. She was explaining that the leaders go to these cats because "they probably would know what a good thing to do was". I responded "oh, so they were wise?" "Yes," she replied, "they were wise, heavenly cats." It was clear to me (from her intonation and because I know her) that dd had the concept, but couldn't find the word for it. She's heard "wise" before, but I don't know whether she's had to use it very often (if at all).

  I love that.  Cute!  

That clears things up quite a bit!  I would say then my guess of around 150+ words at 1yr might be about right.  Since 1, her vocabulary has just further amazed me, but it seems vocabulary is her thing!