The Path to Word Combinations

Beyond first words, the onset of word combinations is an exciting milestone for toddlers and parents alike. This marks the beginning of productive language. Suddenly, toddlers are communicating new meanings by stringing two or more words together. When does this happen? Usually around 18-24 months when the toddler's vocabulary has reached a minimum of 50 words. This provides toddlers with enough of a foundation to begin to combine words in a meaningful way.

How do these combinations sound? This will vary from child to child because vocabulary is so unique and is based on the language that the child has been exposed to. Sometimes before children combine words meaningfully, they produce multiword phrases that they have memorized such as "Idon'tknow" and "Iwant" - note that these are not meaningful combinations because they have been memorized. Nonetheless, they may be part of the child's journey towards combining. Another variation is the presence of jargon combined with true words. So you may hear something along the lines of "mumble mumble mumble truck". Again, this is totally normal and may be part of the journey for that toddler.

When toddlers start to mark features like quantity, properties, actions and locations, we know that they are truly combining words as they are learning that language can be strung together to communicate an infinite number of meanings. These combinations include utterances like "Mommy sit", "Big Ball", "boy walk" and "socks on". These combinations will not sound perfect as they are typically missing function words and morphemes that mark plurality, tense and possession. Taking an example from above: "Mommy sit" will likely appear before "Mommy sits" or "Mommy is sitting".

How can you support word combinations at this stage? As discussed, these early combinations are usually not grammatically correct. And this is totally OK! We can provide grammatically-correct models to toddlers to support them in their learning. This doesn't mean that we're requiring them to repeat the corrected production. Rather, we are exposing them to grammatically correct forms with zero pressure. It looks like this:

Child: Mommy coat!

Adult: Yes that's Mommy's coat!

Child: Hurt knee!

Adult: Ouch! You hurt your knee!

Child: Car fast!

Adult: That car is going fast!

If your child has an adequate number of words in their vocabulary, but is not yet combining words by 24 months, it is suggested that you speak with your child's primary care provider to discuss a referral to a Speech-Language Pathologist. It may be that the child simply needs some support in beginning to combine words.

Questions? Feel free to leave a comment below!

-- Meg

References:

Hoff, E. (2020). Language Development. Wadsworth.