A main source for the ages
Share of children saying at least one word, by age: our count from Wordbank v3.4
MyHappyBub (analysis of Wordbank open data) ยท 2026
- Children
- About 5,900 word lists for children aged 8 to 18 months
- Where
- The United States (children learning English)
- Ages
- 8 to 18 months
- How
- Our own count from parents' word lists in the open Wordbank collection (12 studies)
- What it found
- About half of children were said to say at least one word by 10 months, 3 in 4 by 12 months, and nearly all (95 in 100) by 16 months. "Mommy" and "daddy" counted as words.
- Limits
- Based on parents' reports. Each month is a different group of children, so single months go up and down a little. The word lists start at 8 months, so they can't show how early the earliest talkers start.