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Walking and Talking
Toddler Language and Development Questions Answered by the Experts
By iParenting Staff
Hudon says by the time a child is 20 months old, he should be using at least single words to communicate. "Typically, by 2 years of age, many children can make complete sentences with some age-appropriate sound production errors (i.e., wamp/lamp)," she says. "However, ever child is different and develops at different rates. Many children go through a gross motor burst of development and spend all their energy on climbing and jumping. Then later [they] will focus developmentally on speech and language development."
Hudon suggests that parents discuss their concerns with their pediatrician who will be able to assess whether a referral to a speech-language pathologist is recommended.
Toddlers have been so named because they're at the stage in their motor development when walking isn't yet an accurate term for the upright method with which they transport themselves, says Rae Pica, children's physical activity specialist and author of A Running Start: How Play, Physical Activity and Free Time Create a Successful Child (Marlowe and Co., 2006). "In fact, for many of them, wobbling is a more appropriate term than toddling," she says. "That's because toddlers are still discovering the concept of balance, which improves tremendously during the preschool years but is still a major challenge before age 3."
When a person is balanced, her center of gravity is over the base of support, whether that base is a foot, two feet, two hands or the head and hands, Pica says. "Naturally, balance over a wide base is easier than over a narrow one – which is why toddlers toddle with their feet so far apart," she says.