Milestone Moments: 18-24 Months

Tips from a Physical Therapist

As your little one nears the 2-year mark, you might have noticed that there haven't been a lot of "new milestones," but that they are just perfecting and improving on what they have already learned. Since that is the case, the physical tips at this age are more about encouragement than new milestones to achieve. See some of the tips from a physical therapist below.

• Encourage walking along furniture, with a push toy, or using parents’ hands.
• Encourage walking on various surfaces such as grass, sand, carpet, etc.
• Encourage walking over obstacles.
• Encourage climbing activities.
• Encourage standing while getting dressed.

Tips from a Speech Therapist

Follow these tips from one of our speech therapists to expand your child's ability to communicate with you!

Understanding/Using verbs

• If you're a parent that loves to cook or bake, have your little one help you. This is a great opportunity to practice a) imitating motor movements/actions, b) understanding action words, and c) using action words (verbs).
  • For example, if you're making a cake (yum), give your little one a "pretend" bowl and spoon. While you're "STIRRING" (verb), model this movement while talking out loud (keep it simple and SHORT). For example, "momma is stirring"or "(Child's name) is stirring" or "STIR." After your stir, then model "POUR." After you put it in the oven, model "cook" or "bake." When it's "all done," serve everyone a piece and model, "eat." Children learn BEST through hands on experience!!!
• If you don't love to cook, that's fine too. You can model other verbs through different hands-on activities.
  • For example, playing outside. “On your mark...get set...run" (verb), or if you have a trampoline, "jump" (verb), or with a ball, "throw.”
  • While in the house, hold hands and model "walk" or "we are walking" (make sure you're actually walking), or "march" or "we are marching" (go marching down the hall), or "hop." etc.  

Expanding your child's utterances

• If your 18–24-month-old is primarily engaging, responding, etc. with one-word utterances (e.g., "dog" or "cup"), model back to your little one the longer, more appropriate (for age) grammatically correct phrases.
  • For example, if your little one reaches and says "cup" model back "I want cup." 
• If your child can imitate you, encourage him/her to say this back to you. (Accept any approximation at his/her attempt at saying both words – "I want cup"). 
• If your little one is not at a point where he/she is able to imitate you yet (or imitate both words or all), just model the phrase to him/her (I want cup) and then reward by giving him/her the cup. 
• If your child is primarily using two-word phrases (e.g., want cup), do the same thing, but model the 3-word phrase (e.g., I want cup).

Identifying pictures

• Books are a great activity to target this. Don't always feel that you have to read the book start to finish in the way it's intended. Follow your child's lead. If he/she points to the lion (if it's an animal book), say "Rawr! There's a lion." Then, see if you can incorporate, "Where is the elephant?" (depending on what kind of theme book you are using). 
• If this is a new activity for your kiddo, you likely will need to use what we call, "hand over hand" assistance. This means you "show" him/her with his/her hand by touching the picture. Praise their success, even if it was with help from you (e.g., "Yay! You found elephant!”). Incorporate loud, exciting emotions throughout the activity (e.g., when you're about to turn the page). 
• Favorite book recommendations: "The Big Book of Exclamations" by Teri Peterson

Naming Body parts

• If your kiddo is not picking up body parts, incorporate fun singing/song activities. My favorite song to use is the classic, “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” (and eyes and ears and mouth and nose). First, practice by just singing it and your child trying to imitate you (if he/she is at a developmental point where he/she can imitate). If they can't imitate you, touch your head (in the song) use hand over hand assistance (and slowly fade). 
• After your child gets good at this, practice where he/she has to finish the song. For example, you sing "head shoulders knees and....." Wait for your child to bend down and touch "toes." Then you sing, "and eyes.... and...." etc.

Tips from an Occupational Therapist

Here are some tips on ways to help your child interact with their world with tips from an occupational therapist. 

• Play is how your child is learning about and interacting with their environments. Limit screen time and provide opportunities for play throughout their day.
• Complete simple insert puzzles together, draw and color together, allowing your child to scribble and begin making vertical and horizontal lines.
• Read books together, allowing your child to turn the pages.
• During bath time and dressing, have your child assist with removing and putting on socks and shoes, pulling down pants, and pulling shirt over their head.
• Provide opportunities for sensory play such as water play, bubbles, digging/scooping in sand, gathering leaves in a pile, etc.
• Allow use of spoon during mealtime and encourage self-feeding. Mealtime is a great sensory experience for children, so let them become messy!
• Children this age love to imitate what adults do.  Let your child help with cleaning by giving them a wet rag to wipe the chair while you wash the table, allow your child to stack plastic cups while you empty the dishwasher, encourage your child to help you remove clothes from the dryer and place in a basket, allow child to assist in watering flowers, etc.
• Continue to encourage dramatic play with activities of interest such as talking to you on a toy phone, cooking on toy kitchen to stir, stack items, pretend pour into cups, or use toy trucks to drive up/down ramps, park in pretend garage, etc.
• Encourage hand and finger strength and coordination with Play-Doh activities using cookie cutters, small rolling pins, plastic scissors to cut Play-Doh. Encourage shoulder strength by drawing or painting on vertical surfaces such as a chalk board easel.
• Introduce your child to toilet training by regularly allowing child to sit on toilet.