Your Toddler’s Development – 18 months to 2 years

By now your toddler will love chatting away with you using words and short phrases. They will be interested in you and what you have to say about the exciting world that is all around them.

Find out a little more about how your toddler’s communication skills are developing by exploring the information below.

Listening & Understanding

Your child will undergo a rapid growth in their understanding of words, simple instructions and questions - particularly those that are associated with everyday routines.

They will be able to follow simple instructions like ‘show me ...’ , ‘give me ...’ and ‘where's the …’

As your child’s language, understanding and memory develop they will be able to remember two things at a time - for example ‘Get the cup and give Teddy a drink’.

They will be able to listen for longer periods and understand simple explanations.

Your child will enjoy listening to simple stories, songs, and rhymes.

They are still a very concrete thinker and can’t yet grasp abstract concepts such as distance and time.

They will show interest in other children but usually play on their own. They are still unable to control their impulses or reason and cannot understand the perspective of others - this makes sharing very difficult!

Your child will imitate your actions during their play for example talking on a toy telephone or drinking from a toy cup.

Your child’s ability to remember is also improving and they may tell you about past experiences or events. For example remembering your coffee cup is hot or telling Nanna about the ducklings they saw at the park.

They will start to notice similarities and differences and may enjoy sorting games. For example putting all the animals together, sorting blocks into colours (although they may not know the names for these colours).

They begin to notice objects that go together - for example shoes and socks, textas and paper.

Communicating

Your child’s vocabulary develops rapidly every week and your child will say between 50 and 300 different words by 2 years.

Short phrases will emerge with your child beginning to put two words together (‘daddy come’, ‘Ella eat’, ‘hat on’). Words that carry less meaning like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘are’ will be missing.

They will start to use their own name, but will still find pronouns such as ‘me’ and ‘I’ difficult.

Your child will persevere until you understand what they are saying. They will try to make it easier for you to understand by using gestures and by changing the tone of their voice. Baby signs can be a helpful tool that your child can use to explain what they are trying to say.

By two years, unfamiliar listeners should be able to understand about half of what your child says.

12 to 18 months
2 to 3 years