What You Can Do to Support Babies' Brain Development - From 18 to 24 Months - Language Skills

Sep 28, 2026

Guidance for supporting toddlers’ brain development from 18 to 24 months across language, thinking, social-emotional, and movement domains. The material recommends responsive conversation during daily routines, patient listening, repeating and expanding children’s speech, and daily shared reading with stories, songs, rhymes, and poems. It also promotes imitation, hands-on sensory play, imaginative props, and discourages pressure for academic teaching. Social-emotional support focuses on age-appropriate sharing, turn-taking games, and distraction/redirection, while movement advice builds fine and large motor skills through drawing, puzzles, water/sand play, dressing support, climbing, and safe indoor activity spaces.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

Language Skills

Thinking Skills

Social-Emotional Development

Movement

What You Can Do to Support Babies' Brain Development From 18 to 24 Months | Language
Toddlers vary greatly in their paths to understanding and using language. Between 18 and 24 months, toddlers can usually say around 50 words. They then begin adding several new words to their spoken vocabulary every day, and begin putting two words together, such as “more milk.” If you are concerned about a language delay, talk with the child’s family and suggest an evaluation by a health care provider or child development specialist.
Talk with your toddlers. This is one of the most important ways you can help children develop language skills! Talk as you play and go through your daily routines together.
Take the time to listen to your toddlers.
Toddlers' speech can be slow and difficult to understand. Be patient, and try to really understand what they are saying.
Repeat, expand, or restate what the toddler says. This lets the child know that you are listening and trying to understand what he says, and encourages him to keep talking.
Read to your toddlers every day. Also tell stories from your culture, history, and experiences. Sing and use rhymes, finger plays, and poems in your daily routines. | Thinking Skills
Toddlers do a lot of imitating at this age. They learn a variety of skills by copying what they see you do. Imitation is especially important because it is a key step in understanding the use of symbols as stand-ins for the objects and things they experience. For example, they will pick up a toy phone and hold it to their ear and babble away. As toddlers near age 2, you might see them engage in pretend play like saying “hello” toa doll or pretending to eat a plastic apple. The ability to understand symbols depends on many areas of the brain maturing across the second year and beyond.
Encourage imitation. You can do this by acting as a good role model, showing children how to be patient in working through a challenging task.
Provide “hands on” experiences. These might include sand and water table play, lay dough, finger paints, and so on.
Provide props that encourage imaginative play. Useful objects include: toy telephones, food, hats, and dress-up clothes.
Resist pressure to “teach” toddlers specific academic skills such as colors and shapes.
They will learn these concepts through their everyday play and interaction with you. For example, ask if they want a red or green apple, or point out shapes and colors as you take a walk around the house or outside: “Do you see the street sign shaped like a triangle?” | | --- | --- | Copyright 2009 ZERO TO THREE. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, [go to www.zerotothree.org/reprints](go to www.zerotothree.org/reprints) What You Can Do to Support Babies' Brain Development From 18 to 24 Months Social-Emotional Development At about 18 months, toddlers begin developing self-awareness, or an understanding that they are separate individuals. That’s why the proclamations“me” and “mine” are all the rage at this age. Toddlers are experiencing a need for more independence now that they can do more for themselves. Their capacity for self-control is just beginning to develop during this period. Although toddlers probably understand you when you tell them not to take from others, they have avery difficult time stopping themselves from doing it. For all of these reasons, learning to share and cooperate at this age is still challenging for toddlers. They need your help and guidance to manage their emotions and to make good choices. Have age-appropriate expectations for sharing. If possible, provide multiples of children’s favorite toys (such as trains) to reduce sharing conflicts. Help the children take turns. Use a timer so the children can see when it will be their turn and to help them learn to wait. Play sharing and turn-taking games. Interesting games for toddlers include rolling a ball back and forth to each other and taking turns adding a

FAQs

How can caregivers support language development for toddlers aged 18 to 24 months?

Talk with toddlers during play and daily routines, listen patiently, and try to understand them. Repeat, expand, or restate what the child says, and read to them every day with stories, songs, rhymes, finger plays, and poems.

What thinking and learning activities help toddlers develop understanding of symbols?

Encourage imitation by modeling patience and demonstrating challenging tasks. Provide hands-on experiences like sand and water table play, finger paints, and play props such as toy telephones, hats, and dress-up clothes, while avoiding pressure to “teach” specific academic skills like colors and shapes.

How should adults handle sharing conflicts and turn-taking during this stage?

Set age-appropriate expectations, provide multiple toys to reduce conflicts, and help children take turns using a timer they can see. Use sharing/turn-taking games and calm disputes with distraction or redirection by offering another activity for the child who needs to wait.

Sep 28, 2026

Uploaded by Olivia Brown