# how many words approx. do 20 month olds say?



## neveryoumindthere (Mar 21, 2003)

does that make sense?

just wondering how many words kids my dd's age are saying these days


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## mamatoady (Mar 16, 2004)

my dd had 4 words from 12 months to her 2nd birthday. Between her 2nd b-day and 28 months she had around 30 words. She is 29 months and has around 50. She was a late talker, but it all came suddenly.


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## Clarity (Nov 19, 2001)

at 20m DD could say hi, bye, mommy, daddy, doggie. And that's about it. During months 21-22 she sort of exploded language wise. By 24 months we had short sentences. I would say she was behind her peers at 20m, but then jumped ahead. At 3, people think she's very verbal- helped by her small size, maybe - people think she's younger. But her language is more like her 4yo peers now.


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## firstlovesnbaby (Dec 13, 2003)

When ds was 20 months he said about 20 words including animal sounds. At 24 months he says over 50.


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## late-night nan (Jan 28, 2003)

our 21mo repeats most of what we say, so we have to start being more careful lately. he also uses a lot of words on his own, but it's hard to put a number on it. some favorites are "car puzzle," "guitar," "church" (says whenever he sees a cross or plus sign), "elevator" and "mountain climber" (the latter from a song). he's making short sentences, like "Mama, do it!" "Dada, sit down" and "Thomas (the train) fall down". so funny to hear him saying directions when I carry him "not that way, THAT way!"

and a really helpful phrase that has prevented meltdowns is "Help! Stuck!"


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## Colorful~Mama (Feb 20, 2003)

when my dd, now 4.5 was 20 months she had a pretty big vocabulary
at 12mos she said mama, daddy, doggie, up, down, all done and milties (milkies for nursing)
by 18mos she said three word sentences like "mama help zoey" and "more juice please"
same with my other daughter who is 15yo now

my son, now 18mos is totally non verbal. He says "la la" once in a while if teletubbies are on. He will sign "all done" after dinner and he can sign more if you ask him to... "you want more roman? please say more" and then he'll sign it. He knows the sign for nursing/milk but usually refuses to use it.
he says "ah!" in all different intonations. But refuses to say anything else. He does talk to himself walking around the house. ba ba ba ma ma ma da da da .
and he will say "ba" for ball if he sees one

i can' twait for him to have a language explosion cuz he (and I) get so frustrated trying to figure out what he (or i ) want. lol


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## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

At 20 months my dd said about 4 words, then her vocab just exploded at about 24 months.


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## Raven67 (Apr 20, 2002)

I think there is tremendous variation in what is normal. My daughter is 14 mos., and says about 20 words. She started picking up a lot in the past few weeks. Girls are typically a little faster than most boys in language development. Here's a link:

http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/...elopment.shtml


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## FireWithin (Apr 29, 2004)

I agree with Raven67 that it is quite variable.

I haven't counted in many months, but I would guess that DS had over 200 at 20 mos. He is now 22 mos. He had over 100 at 17 mos (but this included signs and spoken English).


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## velcromom (Sep 23, 2003)

It really does vary, ds's ped asked us at his 18 month appt "Is he saying 2-word sentences yet?" Well, just that week he'd started saying six word sentences. So, what is normal for vocab and grammar really seems to encompass a wide range.

I would say that at 20 months ds was around the 100 mark but I can't be sure since we really had stopped counting and the last real count we made was technically of signs he knew as well, which at around 14 months was near 40 not including words he spoke but did not have a sign for.


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## mightymoo (Dec 6, 2003)

.. My DD is on the extremely verbal end of the spectrum, at around 15 months we tried to list all the words she could say and gave up at 250. At 21 months, I couldn't fathom trying to figure it out. She speaks in fairly complete, simple sentences of 3-5 words. 'That's Mommy's drink', 'Daddy's going to work', 'Where did the bear go?', 'I need to take the shoes off', etc. Some she picks up wholesale from us others she constructs on her own.

I am having a little boy this time around, it will be interesting to see the differences in their development. He may never talk because DD will probably never shut up and give him a chance.


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## cornflake girl (Jan 2, 2002)

My 20 mo dd only says 2 words (plus lots of animal sounds). I think this is the key, though,;

Quote:

He may never talk because DD will probably never shut up and give him a chance.
DD2 doesn't need to talk because dd1 is at her beck and call.


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## Orange Crayon (Nov 1, 2004)

At 20 months I think my dd said maybe two words..She didnt really start talking alot until around 26 months.


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## eclipse (Mar 13, 2003)

i don't know what's typical, but both of my kids are/were early and prolific talkers. ds was speakign in short sentances by his first b-day and by 20 months could do the whole alphabet, count to ten, name most body parts, identify and say colors, etc. i got pregnant with dd when he was right about that age, and he had a clear understanding of what was going on and could tell people that his mommy had a baby in her belly and was going to push it out when it was big enough. dd is not quite that far (she will be 20 months on the 18th), be she still talks a lot - short sentances, simple body parts, and random things you wouldn't expect (like "empty," "nummy water" (that's her new term for breastmilk







)


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## newmainer (Dec 30, 2003)

my dd is now 20 months and she talks all day long, in 3-5 word sentences. a lot of her sentences are parroted of what we say, but she can do a lot of basic stuff herself- "dolly fall down.." " mommy read book" " mommy sit down please" etc... she counts to 11, knows almost all colors but confuses red/blue, and has nearly all of her books memorized. I'm sure most kids do if you read the same ones over and over, so I don't know if this is particularly different or not. same as some of the above, she had about 3-4 words (dog, duck, up, didis-nursing-) plus signs and it just took off from there.

we have friends of about the same age and the range is all different. seems that kids who start a bit later catch up super fast about 2.


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## Jenny_adoptChina (Mar 7, 2003)

I just looked in our journal to find out. At 18months she had about 50 words (including signs). Between 18 and 19 months she added about 100 more words. Then I stopped counting. I think that was when she had her vocabulary explosion, and stopped signing much after that. She still signs a few things, like elephant, giraffe, etc, but mostly she just says the words now. I noticed she'll start signing again though if I do it myself with her while playing, even though she can say the words now too. She's almost 2 years old now and has some short sentences but not a whole lot. One of her favorite things to do is counting to 10, over and over and over. Her nana and papa love to do that with her on the phone so it's pretty cute.


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## allismom (Nov 28, 2004)

DD is 24 months and speaks around 300-400 words. She is quite advanced for her age, I believe. I counted a 12 word sentence the other day!


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## cappuccinosmom (Dec 28, 2003)

Ds is 21 months now, and his vocabulary is growing every day. Most of what he says is repeating what we say. He definately has some of his own words though (car, moon, book, yummies, more (food!), tractor (that's a really recent one), walk, eating, running, etc.) and has started saying two-word phrases as well. He's always been good at grasping abstract concepts but wasn't really verbal until recently. He was only saying one or two words at 18 months and the doctor told me he might need a hearing screen.







As if my son might be hearing impaired because at eighteen months he didn't point to his belly-button when commanded.







Fortunately I knew there's a huge amount of variation, so I didn't pay much attention. My brother didn't start with sentences until nearly 3 years old, but once he did, my folks couldn't figure out how to get him to shut up, even for a minute. :LOL

I figure ds has just been satisfied with car noises, animal noises, and manly grunting up to this point, and decided that now's the time to impress all his doting relatives by actually talking to them.


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## Jenny_adoptChina (Mar 7, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *cappuccinosmom*
He's always been good at grasping abstract concepts but wasn't really verbal until recently. He was only saying one or two words at 18 months and the doctor told me he might need a hearing screen.







As if my son might be hearing impaired because at eighteen months he didn't point to his belly-button when commanded.









:LOL You're so funny! I totally agree it's really funny what things the doctors and other people think the child should be doing at certain ages. The whole "body-parts" thing seems pretty standard questioning by the doctors, so once I found that out I quickly taught it to her so she can answer any future "quizzes". I think it would be funny if I taught her to say something like "well, no, actually I don't know where my armpit is yet but I can count to 20 faster than you". That might stop the doctor in her tracks pretty well :LOL


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## wildmonkeys (Oct 4, 2004)

My older ds (who is now 5 and able to read - said about 5 words at 18 months) My younger ds (19 months) uses at least 50 with understanding on a regular basis....he is a regular chatterbox and repeats whatever we say right back to us....last night we went to a Superbowl party with some Italian friends and by the end of the night he was calling the hostess "no na" (grandma







)

As for having a Dr. screening hearing - I wouldn't get offended by that suggestion. Lots of kids can hear and decide to talk later (my ds was one of them) but other kids aren't talking because they have fluid in their ears or something. One of my really good friends has a ds who wasn't talking much at two and she didn't think much of it since her dh is a quiet guy and her son was super great with puzzles and coloring and other developmental tasks but when a Dr. recommended screening him they did in fact find that his hearing was muffled. Drs. need to keep an eye on it because at this age kids are learning to talk (even if they aren't uttering a word) by listening....if they can't hear everything it.

Anyway, if they are saying one word or hundreds it is an amzing thing to watchg them "crack the code" isn't it?

BJ
Barney & Ben


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## neveryoumindthere (Mar 21, 2003)

thanks for the replies everyone
it *is* amazing watching them learn all these new words..one of the best ones we taught her was 'help'..it has saved us lots of tantrums !!

i didnt even abswer my own question..dd at 20 months is saying over 50 words and repeating lots
this age is really a lot of fun







:


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## bobica (May 31, 2004)

the average to look for is 50 words at 24 months & starting to put them together to form little phrases.


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