How many words does your almost-one-year-old understand?

Question

I'm a first time mom and I'm just curious... When my daughter was about 10 months old, she started pointing at everything and I would name it for her. One day she pointed at a table fan, I said "fan", and she looked at me like I was nuts and pointed at the ceiling fan. LOL. That's when I realized she understood a lot more than I thought! Now at 11 months, I'd say she understands at least 50 words. Simple things like cup and baby doll, but also harder things like hot and up. She can follow directions like "come here" or "look up" and points at things when I ask her where they are. She also nods yes or shakes her head no when I ask her if she wants to do something like take a walk or eat lunch. I'm just amazed by this! Some of the words she knows amaze me... I don't think I said "sidewalk" that many times! LOL. Anyway, my question is - How many words does the "average" baby know at this age? I'm just wondering if this is about average for her age... Thanks!

Answer 1

Your daughter is right on target!! There is really no specific amount of words that a child is familiar with, receptively. It all depends on what she is exposed to.  

A one-year-old should be able to: follow 1-step directions, respond to requests to say words, maintains attention to pics, respond to 'give me' command, points to two actions in pictures, understand some prepositions, and identify 3 body parts on self and doll.

Expressively, a 1-year-old is expected to: shake head 'no', say 8-10 words spontaneously, name one object frequently, vary pitch when vocalizing, use true words with jargon, imitate animal sounds, take turns vocalizing with children.

Your daughter is not even 1! So she's actually developing quite typically (especially since girls do develop skills sooner than boys).