How many words can your 16 month old say?

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My daughter is 16 months and she feels quite far behind where her sister was verbally at this age. She says mama, dada, bear, girl, and pop. Her understanding is good but she just says so little.
Does she seem behind? Or is this normal? What words can your 16 month olds say? I’m just trying to get a range of development to get a sense of how she’s doing.

Giving this a bump…

If you do the communication section of the 15 month Ages & Stages, how does she score?

@SleafordSods thank you for this. Under the communication skills I’d say yes for the first 4 but no for the other 2. Does this suggest a delay if she isn’t meeting all six criteria?

I’m not an expert, just had one with a speech delay but I’d say no?

If you’ve answered yes to the first 4 that gives a score of 40 which is within hThe white area, which is great.

Between around 17 and 30 would require monitoring and below 17 would need a referral, so you’re nowhere near that point.

If you are worried though, have a look at the resources on Speech & Language UK as it gives ideas in how to encourage speech

I kept track of my sons words for each month, he could also do animal sounds.
Hope this helps:

13 months:
2. Dada
3. Mama
4. Baba
5. Down
6. Ta
7. Car
8. Brum
9. Up
10. Quack
11. Woof
12. Uh oh

14 months
13. Nana (banana)
14. Bye
15. Moo
16. Open
17. Shut
18. Book
19. Gyp

15 months
20. Toes
21. Eyes
22. One
23. Two
24. Knock
25. Go
26. Cat
27. Beep beep
28. Hoot hoot

16 months
29. Choo choo
30. Seesaw
31. Slide
32. Star
33. Circle
34. Sleeping
35. Baby
36. Ice cream
37. Chicken
38. Hi

I worked in child development. This sounds aligned to normal development. My eldest was very vocal at 18 months when the sr asked me if he could say six worse’s he responds”well of course I can”. The dr asked “how many?”, he said “fifty”. Hitch made the dr smile and ask “has mummy counted”, he sad “no, I have”.
My next one child not say any words clearly but understood and did a lot of miming.
The third was somewhere in between.
i imagine if this was your first child he would seem fine, it is perhaps the comparison between the two.Keep talking to her and encourage her to repeat. You may find baby signing helps. Speak about everything you do.
As she understands it does not seem as if her hearing is an issue but you can get a check when she is a little older.

My nearly 17 month old can say the following words. But I thought until recently he was behind on his speech - once I started listening more carefully (and when his 3yo sister wasn't around!) I could hear loads of words. Some are also words he uses at nursery. So try to do the same and I'm sure you will hear some more. Remember at this age words aren't articulated clearly and even if they are using a made up word it counts if they are using it consistently for the same thing. Try not to stress, as people have said, physically, verbal, mental, emotional and social development all takes place at their own rate.

People:

Mama
Papa
Indy
Molly
Bridget
Barry
Theo (and other nursery friends names)
Baby

Instructions / Actions:

Yes / Yeah
No
Down
Up
Side
Beep beep
Bye bye
Night night
There
Oh no
Hiya

Meals / Food:

Breakfast
Dinner
Milk (and boobie)
Cheese
Orange
Nana (banana)
Flapjack
Pasta

Objects:

Door
Fork
Spoon
Tea set
Book
Bike
Ball
Chair
Cup
Bowl
Hat
Table
Car (and Police car)
Bus
Sock
Slide
Seesaw
Swing

Animals:

Duck
Dog
Cat (and miaow)
Pig
Cow (and moo)
Bird

Places:

Seashore
Pub
Park

Weather:

Rain
Star
Sun

Do you have a check coming up? The health visitor development one? If so, don’t let them fob you off by saying your child is only a little behind and they’ll come back in a few weeks etc. Speech and language intervention is crucial if needed, I was fobbed off by the health visitor twice as my son was only just missing the score. He ended up being non verbal until he was almost 5! Speech and language therapy helped so much and he now has a very good vocabulary.

My son’s speech was far behind his sister at the same age, health visitor put it down to laziness as he would allow his sister to do the talking for him.

My son (first born) spoke very early and people always commented on it.

my daughter (second) hardly spoke at all until she was 2.

I remember being so worried it was so noticeable that she was way behind her friends.

she was 4 in July and she literally does not stop talking 😂

they suddenly just catch up.

please don’t worry x

No it isn’t normal and is behind developmentally.

OP, easy for someone else to say, but monitor it but don’t worry.

My son is 8. Had next to no words at that age. I got myself in quite an anxious state googling, completely obsessed. We got a referral for SALT when he was 18 months (I think more to appease me than because anything could be ‘done’ to help, as simply to young). All they care about at this age is shared joint attention and responsiveness to own name. Providing they can do both of those things they’ll be quite happy. If not responding to own name they may refer to audiology for hearing test. Also note they do not tend to Juno straight to grommets under the NHS (due to cost). They have a wait and watch approach, push hearing aids in the first instance. You have to push back on that hard.

We stayed ‘in the system’ and I had to fight and advocate hard for therapy. It wasn’t great under NHS. They do episodes of care. Basically the more capable you are of teaching your child, you get less sessions. They teach you something, you go home and repeatedly teach the child until they have mastered. Back to the next set for the next ‘lesson’ - it’s diabolical actually.

Sadly my son was nursery age during Covid so carers wore mask so he couldn’t ‘see’ speech and then they wanted to do zoom sessions with him. He was more interested in the laptop as he hadn’t been on one before. He also couldn’t hear the soft sounds like ‘s’ they were trying to have him repeat. It was dreadful. They didn’t return to in person for a long long time. As mentioned above, episodes of care were short I assume to get through the backlog.

We ended up going by private and having fortnightly sessions with an amazing therapist who went into his nursery and then school to work with the carers and then the TA’s.

He is 8 now. He will always find it harder to formulate his words than other children (speech, which is the sounds of a word), but his language (vocab) is now considered as on track.

He still has his therapist go in monthly to school to work with the TA’s. We also got him under a specialist NHS programme which was an intensive 6 month programme which is excellent but pretty brutal (drilling him 1000 words per days on repeat). If you don’t do it and they can tell you get kicked off. Only 2 therapists in the county are qualified for it so it’s hard to get in under NHS.

My point is - monitor. Advocate for him when the time is right but he’s really too little right now for any intervention to work.

Point at items and say the word and when he tries them just model them back to him. Keep sentences shorter whilst he is establishing his vocab. Then when the words come he will understand them.

I would say don’t worry as every kid is so different. My second son didn’t say a word till 18 months (not even mum) and the paediatrician referred him for speech therapy. The doctor stressed me out so much as he said he needs to say x amount of words by now blah blah. At 20 months, he suddenly woke up one day and made full sentences out of nowhere! We never needed that referral in the end. He is now almost 3 and he is sooo well articulate for his age.

Thank you so much everyone for the input. It’s hard to tell where she should be at this stage.
Based on the ASQ questionnaire she seems to be broadly on track. But then I did the questionnaire on the website you shared @SleafordSods and she does seem behind.
And the word lists you shared @TTCJJB and @Yorkie29 were so helpful as a more tangible guide. But they’ve also made me feel very worried as my daughter is so far off saying so many words!
She does seem to have good understanding. I ask her where things are in a page and she knows what most things are. But she seems so timid to even try to say anything. And of course her very verbal sister dominates the conversation so much.
I feel so worried about her!
Thank you everyone for all the guidance. I’ll keep trying with stories and games and then assess where we are in a couple more months.

The ASQs are designed to capture the range of typical development (and the range of 'typical' when it comes to speech at 16 months is very wide!), so as she scores in the white on that, she's very likely on track.

Speech and Language UK tend to take a more cautious approach with their questionnaires and will often flag if even one box is not ticked. This avoids missing anyone who might need support, but means they will flag a fair number of children who would be fine without any additional support – there are pros and cons to both methods. Do they still offer a free phone call to discuss? If so, that might be worth doing for tips.

@skkyelark thank you, that’s really helpful to understand - and quite reassuring. Based on this then perhaps she’s on track but could be better.