When does a child typically experience a vocabulary spurt?

A child typically experiences a vocabulary spurt around 18 months to 2 years of age, which is aligned with a critical period in language development. During this phase, children often show a rapid increase in the number of words they can understand and produce. This spurt usually follows a period of gradual vocabulary acquisition, where they may only learn a few words per month.

As children approach 18 months, many start to understand linguistic input better and begin to associate sounds with objects and actions more effectively, which contributes to this sudden growth in vocabulary. By the time they reach the two-year mark, it’s common for children to have a vocabulary that expands significantly, sometimes incorporating dozens of new words in a matter of weeks. This word learning is facilitated by social interactions, exposure to language, and their developing cognitive abilities.

Other timeframes, such as birth, 6 to 12 months, and around three years old, do not coincide with this pronounced spurt in vocabulary acquisition. Instead, early vocabulary development involves babbling and single words, while after the vocabulary spurt, further growth continues but at a different rate, moving into more complex sentence structures and varied language use.