At what age does the holophrastic stage occur?

The holophrastic stage occurs around 12 to 18 months of age, which is when children start using single words (holophrases) to express whole ideas or sentences. During this stage, a single word can communicate a complete thought, such as saying "milk" to mean "I want milk" or "up" to indicate they want to be picked up. This developmental milestone reflects significant cognitive and linguistic growth as children begin to understand that words can represent objects, actions, and requests.

In the context of language acquisition, this stage signifies a shift from non-verbal forms of communication, such as gestures and cries, to the use of words, laying the foundation for further speech development and vocabulary expansion in the following years.