I know many parents often wonder, when do babies usually say their first word? 

When your baby gets to the age when it seems like they may be talking soon, this is likely your next Google search. As a speech-language pathologist, I’m asked this question often as well. The short answer is, first words can be heard anywhere from 9-12 months. But let’s dive into everything you need to know about your baby’s first words. 

When Do Babies Usually Say Their First Word?

As I mentioned, babies usually say their first words anywhere from 9-12 months. This includes common first words like mama or dada, but can also include animal sounds. The animal sounds may come before the true “words,” but they actually count as first words! They’re called Protowords. 

My Own Son’s Experience 

I remember my son’s first word. It was “wow.” Then after that, he started saying “eeeehh” for an elephant sound.

He actually started to talk a little late – he started talking in clear words around 16 months. Then by 18 months, he had four words: “mama,” “papa,” “agua,” “wow,” and the elephant sound. 

Those first few words took him a while to learn. We were trying hard to help him learn new words, but it was definitely stressful. Though it can feel challenging, late talking is not so uncommon.   

The Early Steps Towards the First Words

What I didn’t know at the time, however, was what a large task it was for an infant to learn how to talk. 

Your baby needs to understand words before they can say them. And in order to recognize a word, they need to be able to find the words in the stream of sounds they hear. That is no small feat! 

This is why spending lots of quality time playing with your child, with limited distractions, is important. 

Speaking in your baby’s voice also helps – they love that. And singing too. Singing is a wonderful way to interact with your baby. 

From there, you will want to get into the habit of doing something, waiting for your baby’s reaction, and sharing nonverbal communication. All of this happens before the first word appears and is crucial to their language development. 

[The stage after this, where your child starts to speak in simple sentences using mainly verbs and nouns, is called telegraphic speech. If you’re curious, I shared a lot more about telegraphic speech in this post.] 

The Science Behind Your Baby’s First Words

As an SLP, I talk about this concept with parents a lot. It really is important to interact with your baby to help them learn language. And the research on this is pretty fascinating!  

Dr. Jenny Saffran has done some amazing research on the topic of how infants learn language. 

Her findings show that their cognitive abilities are actually quite high, and even from a very early age, they are taking in so much of what they see and hear and developing their language skills. They are not passive listeners. 

She’s shown that infants use “Statistical Learning” – or pattern recognition as they are learning language. They pick up on patterns of both sound and speech. They begin to understand which sounds are likely to come at the end of a word, or when the pause is likely to come in a sentence. Incredible! 

This is why the quality of your interactions with your baby is so important. Speak to them clearly and directly, and model conversational behavior so they can begin to learn those patterns. 

And then eventually, their first words.  

Late Talkers 

My son Nico was a late talker, and as I shared earlier, that is actually quite common! Children hit their developmental milestones at different rates. However, it’s helpful to learn early on if your child is simply a little behind in their language development, or if perhaps there is something going on. A late talker evaluation can help you with this. 

It can also help you identify what type of intervention may be most helpful. Late talkers can sometimes catch up on their own, but there can be negative implications in both the short term and long term when they have no intervention. 

As a speech-language pathologist for over 20 years, I have worked with over 1,000 children, many of whom experienced late talking. I recently developed a Late Talker Evaluation to help you diagnose your child’s delay and create an improvement plan for them. It’s a great first step to develop a plan to help your child.  

I’m Guy Garcia. I have successfully treated over 1000 late-talking toddlers, I am a board-certified speech-language pathologist, and I am the founder of Easy Talking Toddler.