MOBILE BABIES MAY

• Respond to simple requests when accompanied by gestures.
• Identify familiar people or objects when asked to do so.
• Combine gestures and single words to communicate thoughts, feelings, or needs (reaches to caregiver when wanting to be held).
• Communicate needs through single-word speech and through facial expression, gestures, or actions (points to object desired).
• Be able to successfully communicate simple ideas to people who are close and familiar.
• Use a small number of real and made-up words that can be understood by familiar adults.
• Recognize and respond to mention of own name.
• Point to or reach for familiar objects when named.
• Enjoy listening to short stories.
• Enjoy imitation games.
• Watch for signs of being understood by others and repeat efforts if not initially successful.
• Initiate interaction, communication, or conversation with others through gestures, words, and facial expressions (by pointing at objects, requesting a favorite game, speaking or signing a word, sharing a toy or calling attention to an object or person).
• Be able to sustain turn taking in play and simple games (rolls ball back and forth several times).

YOU CAN

• Introduce simple baby games .
• Respond to the child’s cues regarding needs for desire for closeness, comfort, diapering, food, etc.
• Provide simple requests to the child (“Where is your teddy bear?). 
• Use the child’s name and the names of people and objects in the child’s life.
• Join with child during play with toys, books, and pictures familiar to the child.
• Invite child to lap sit for storytelling, singing songs, and repeat rhymes from child’s own culture and language.
• Talk and interact with child during routine times (diaper changing, bath, meals, dressing). 
• Provide play opportunities for child to “talk” to other children and adults with guidance.
• Demonstrate, explain, and provide play opportunities to practice talking and listening (use a play or make-believe telephone, talking to dolls/animals).
• Support child’s understanding of non-verbal communication and gestures using eye contact and other facial expressions while talking, appropriate to child’s culture.
• Help child link vocabulary to real-life experiences by using pictures, objects, and events (child sees a picture of boat in book and caregiver comments that it looks like daddy’s fishing boat).
• Match child’s communication of feelings and label feelings (copy child’s sad face and say “You look sad”).
• Avoid screen time, other than video chatting with caregivers and relatives (recommended by American Academy of Pediatrics).

MOBILE BABIES MAY

• Follow some routine and simple directions with support (“Where is your cup?”).
• Show understanding of words by appropriate behavior or gesture (“Can you find your dinosaur?”).
• Show enjoyment of music and move body to “dance”.
• Show understanding of more words in the home and family routines (50 to 75 words by 15 months).
• Follow early directions, such as “Give me the block” (caregiver may extend hand).
• Begin to respond to limits, such as “No!”.
• Use body movement/gestures when hearing words (Caregiver asks “Want up?” and the child extends their hands up to request being lifted up).
• Point to several body parts when asked “Where is your nose?”.
• Show understanding of family member names (Child looks toward father when the word “daddy” is mentioned).
• Look for objects not present in room (Child runs to other room to find teddy bear when asked).
• Point to household objects and pictures in familiar books when asked “Where is the _____?” (16 to 18 months).
• Nod head “yes” or shake head “no” when asked a yes/no question.

YOU CAN

• Talk about what child wants when he/she points to something.
• Talk through actions throughout daily routines.
• Describe what the child is looking at.
• Give simple directions.
• Identify people in the child’s life by name (“Grandma is waving bye bye.”).
• Play/sing favorite songs.
• Use a variety of words to describe things to increase child’s vocabulary (“This is a dog. This kind of dog is a Labrador.”).
• Ask child to pat pictures in books when asked “Where is the ___?”.

MOBILE BABIES MAY

• Say “dada” or “mama” nonspecifically (calls father, mother and caregiver “mama”).
• Show interest in imitating sounds and words they hear during play and routines.
• Enjoy making sounds and combining sounds in babble and strings of jargon using varying intonation.
• Babble when alone in crib.
• Use single word speech (one word to communicate message, child says “up” when wanting to be carried by adult) or begin sign language and symbols (“More,” “nurse/bottle, “All done”).
• Say short telegraphic sentences (“Me go,” or “There Mama”).
• Take hand or push caregiver to desired areas for assistance.
• By 18 months use words to refer to or request caregiver (“mama/dada”).
• Use words in conjunction with pointing or gesturing (child reaches hands up and says “up” to be picked up).
• Say “hi” and “bye” with accompanying waves.
• Speech sound/articulation errors are frequent.
• Communication is 25 percent understandable by 18 months. 
• Use 5 to 20 understandable words by 18 months (“Daddy,” “bottle,” “up”) and/or “baby signs” (“more,” “nursing/bottle,” “all gone,” “no,” “all done”).

YOU CAN

• Talk with other caregivers about ways the child communicates.
• Acknowledge child’s efforts when he/she uses words and/or beginning “baby sign” to communicate.
• Use language in daily routines, talk with child, associate words with actions (“First, we wash our hands, and then we dry them. Next, we open the refrigerator, then we take out the milk. Next, we pour it in a glass.”)
• Use finger play, lullabies, and songs from the child’s home and other languages.
• Continue to expand on child’s attempts to communicate words and early sentences (child says “doggy,” caregiver could expand with “big doggy ... you see a big doggy”).
• When child uses non-verbal cues, add language to describe what they’re communicating.

MOBILE BABIES MAY

• Listen to, participate in and play with a variety of sounds, language, stories, rhymes, poems and songs.
• Use sounds, signs or words to identify actions or objects in a book.
• Verbally imitate adult model and/or names pictures of familiar words when read to.
• Point to picture when asked “where is the ____?”
• Point at, look intently at, sign, or say name of, or talk about animals, people, or objects in photos, pictures, or drawings.
• Show increasing attention for short periods of time when read to.
• Hold a book right side up and turn the pages.
• Use ‘book babble’ when holding a book to mimic the sound of reading.
• Demonstrate preference for favorite books.
• Notice signs (store and restaurant logos).
• Learn new words and phrases from those frequently heard, either in conversation or in books.
• Ask for the story to be read again.
• Answer simple questions about details in the story.
• Carry books and use for comfort.

YOU CAN

• Sing songs, poems, rhymes and stories with the child and create opportunities for them to repeat.
• Engage in finger plays.
• Follow your baby’s lead while lap reading. Allow child to flip through the pages as you enjoy book time together. 
• Create short and repetitive stories as you read together to match your child’s attention span. Don’t worry about reading all of the text.
• Create opportunities for child to select texts they are interested in.
• Read and re-read child’s preferred text with them.
• Ask simple questions about details in the stories or texts being read aloud.
• Hold baby and read a variety of books while baby/ child is interested.
• Create accessible, cozy spaces to keep books and include attractive books that are not tattered or torn. Include stuffed animals, comfortable seating and pillows to invite children.
• Encourage child to recount experiences and describe ideas and events important to them.
• Provide books at level on floor or low shelves so child can access and look at books.
• Visit public libraries with baby or child often. Join story time and group activities.

MOBILE BABIES MAY

• Be able to use arms to reach across the front of their body in order to make marks or scribbles on large paper on vertical drawing surfaces.
• Imitate other’s writing, drawings, or scribbles by making own marks, dots or scribbles.
• Use simple tools without adult assistance (makes mark on paper with large marker).
• Scribble on paper purposefully.
• Adjust body position to enable writing or drawing on paper.
• Pretend to write on paper without regard to location or direction.

YOU CAN

• Continue to offer a variety of sensory-based play materials where child can imitate and make marks (child imitates patterns in playdough with pokes and cuts).
• Write down what the child says he/she has drawn.
• Write child’s comments at the bottom of drawings, collages or photos.
• Provide opportunities for the child to draw and paint in a variety of settings and on a variety of surfaces. Large paper and writing surfaces encourage whole body motor imitation (buckets of water and house painting brushes to “paint” outside of building).
• Engage child in writing in a variety of play settings.