At this stage, increasing your child's total communication and comfort with language is more important than his accurate articulation or production. Ask your child to expand on his comments or observations, thereby adding new associations, integrating and sharing more information and ultimately improving the quantity and quality of his language. Use music, songs and routines to develop sequences and organization in thoughts and actions. Being a good speech model and caring about your own speech production is also important. Taking your child on excursions to the zoo or children's museum and talking about what he sees expands vocabulary and increases sensory information that is part of learning.
Every parent is concerned when their child's language seems different from others the same age.
Remembering that every child develops at an individual pace and that development occurs based on skill levels, not on age alone, is important in differentiating a child who is within expected ranges from a child who is actually delayed. Also, it is not unusual for children to plateau in their language development for a time, particularly as other areas of growth are occurring. From 12 to 18 months, a child's physical development in walking and running are often correlated with a slower increase in their expressive speech production. Delays are varied and may be seen by difficulty in articulation, language comprehension, processing or expression. When a child does not understand simple directions or takes longer than the expected amount of time to process information there may be a problem with receptive language.