Language development begins in the womb. By around 28 weeks of pregnancy, a baby can hear and respond to sounds — and by birth, a newborn already shows a preference for their mother's voice and the language they heard in utero. The first year of life is a period of extraordinary communication development, most of it invisible to the untrained eye.
Understanding the full trajectory of language development helps parents appreciate what is happening before the first word appears, recognise what genuinely supports language growth, and know which signs warrant a conversation with a health visitor or speech and language therapist.
These two terms are important for understanding what language development actually involves.
Receptive language is what the child understands — their ability to comprehend words, phrases, gestures, and context. In babies, receptive language almost always develops ahead of expressive language.
Expressive language is what the child produces — sounds, babble, gestures, and eventually words.
A child may understand far more than they can say. This is completely normal and worth remembering when you feel your baby seems to understand instructions or familiar words but is not yet producing them.
A newborn's primary expressive communication is crying — hunger, pain, discomfort, and overstimulation all produce different cry patterns that parents learn to distinguish over time. At this stage, receptive language is active: babies turn toward familiar voices, startle at loud sounds, and can be calmed by the sound of a parent speaking.
At around six to eight weeks, most babies begin to produce vowel-like sounds — soft, open-mouthed "ooh" and "ahh" sounds, sometimes called cooing. These sounds are not random. They are produced in response to interaction, particularly during face-to-face contact. If you make sounds at a three-month-old, they will often respond with sounds of their own — this is the beginning of conversational turn-taking.
At this stage, babies also begin to discriminate between different sounds and are showing the neural groundwork for phonological development.
The range of sounds expands. Babies begin to experiment with different pitches, volumes, and sounds — squealing, raspberries, growling, and elongated vowel sounds. This "vocal play" represents babies exploring the full capacity of their vocal apparatus, much as a musician might warm up.
Laughing typically emerges at around four months — often in response to physical play, funny faces, or peekaboo.
The transition from vocal play to babbling is a significant milestone. Canonical babbling is the production of repeated consonant-vowel combinations: "ba-ba-ba", "da-da-da", "ma-ma-ma". These sounds use the consonants that appear in virtually all human languages — bilabials (b, p, m) and dentals (d, t, n) — and are produced in a rhythmic, repeated pattern.
Research by Oller and colleagues established that canonical babbling typically begins between six and ten months. Babies who do not produce canonical babble by ten months should be referred for hearing assessment and speech and language therapy evaluation.
At this stage, babies also begin to respond reliably to their own name — looking toward the sound source when called. This is a key milestone.
Babbling diversifies. Rather than the same syllable repeated ("da-da-da"), babies begin to combine different syllables: "da-ba-ga", "mi-da-bu". This is called variegated babbling or, in its most developed form, jargon — strings of varied syllables that begin to take on the rhythm, intonation, and stress patterns of natural speech.
Jargon is often described as sounding like a foreign language — complete with question-like rising intonation, emphatic stress, and pauses in all the right places, but without any actual words. This is not meaningless; it is the baby practising the prosodic structure of language.
At this age, babies also begin to use proto-words — consistent sounds or vocalisations that carry meaning but do not correspond to a real word. A baby who consistently says "neh" when reaching for their bottle is using a proto-word.
Gesture is part of language. Around nine to ten months, babies begin to use:
Pointing typically emerges at around ten to twelve months and is one of the most important communication milestones in the entire first year. Pointing demonstrates that the baby understands that attention can be shared — that they and another person can look at the same thing at the same time. This is called joint attention, and it is the cognitive foundation for language, social learning, and theory of mind.
Most babies produce their first recognisable word somewhere between ten and fourteen months. The average is around twelve months, but the normal range is wide — some babies say their first word at nine months; others wait until fifteen or sixteen months with no cause for concern.
A "first word" in the clinical sense is a sound or sound pattern that:
Common first words in English-speaking UK families include: mama, dada, hiya, no, more, ball, dog, bye-bye, ta.
Alongside expressive development, track what your baby understands:
Receptive language is often more revealing than expressive language at this age.
Responding to your baby's sounds and gestures as if they are communicating — because they are — teaches them the fundamental structure of conversation. When your baby babbles, pause, look at them, and respond. This is not about teaching; it is about participating in communication.
Running commentary on your day ("Now we're going to change your nappy", "You've got a red ball, haven't you", "That's a cold flannel") exposes babies to a large volume of language connected to immediate context and experience. Studies consistently show that vocabulary size correlates strongly with the amount of varied, contingent language babies hear — not background TV.
Reading to babies from birth is beneficial, but the method matters. Reading is not most effective as a one-way performance. Point at pictures, pause, name things, wait for a response. Board books with simple pictures of familiar objects are particularly effective in the second half of the first year.
Babies find it harder than adults to extract speech from background noise. Keeping the TV off or low during interaction time is not essential but does make speech easier to process.
Speak to your health visitor or ask for a referral to speech and language therapy if:
By 6 months: Your baby does not respond to sounds, does not make any sounds, and does not smile socially.
By 8–9 months: No babbling (consonant-vowel combinations), no response to own name, no differentiated vocalisations.
By 12 months: No babbling with varied consonants, no pointing or other gestures (reaching, waving), no first words, does not respond to simple phrases with gesture.
At any age: Any loss of previously achieved communication skills is a red flag and warrants urgent assessment.
A hearing assessment should be part of any speech and language evaluation. Hearing loss is one of the most common causes of delayed speech and language development and is easily overlooked. The NHS newborn hearing screen (NHSP) at birth identifies most significant hearing losses, but some losses are mild, progressive, or acquired after birth.
Your health visitor is the first point of contact. They can refer to NHS speech and language therapy services. Waiting lists for SLT can be long in some areas. If you are waiting, ask about NHS-recommended home programmes (many trusts offer these) and look for local Healthy Child Programme groups that include communication support.
Early support for speech and language delays is effective. Do not wait and see indefinitely if you are concerned. You know your baby — if something seems off, ask.
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