By 12 months
Gestures and back-and-forth
Pointing, waving, showing you things, and trading sounds or looks back and forth with you. In the first year, gestures predict later language far better than word counts do.
Communication
Talk in the language that feels like home.
Two or more languages do not confuse a child and do not create a language disorder. Growth may be distributed across the languages a child hears, so look at the whole communication picture — not at one language in isolation.
Rich language is relational.
Use the language — or languages — you speak most comfortably. That is the language you will use with the most nuance, the most warmth, and the most words, and that is exactly what a child needs. Books, family stories, songs, video calls with relatives, and ordinary conversation all count. It is fine for a child to mix languages while learning; mixing is a feature of bilingual development, not a sign of confusion.
DescribeTalk about what she is looking at or doing, not what you want her to look at.
ExpandIf she says “cat,” answer “Yes, a soft black cat.”
WaitLeave real space for a look, a gesture, a sound, or a word.
When assessing a concern, count every language.
A bilingual child may know different words in different languages — “water” in one and “agua” in the other, but never both. A true language difficulty tends to affect communication across all of a child's languages, not just the one used at school. So ask for an evaluation that considers every language the child hears, with a bilingual speech-language pathologist where possible — not a test of English alone. A child who is quiet in English but chatty at home in another language is not necessarily a child with a language delay.
What to expect
The questions every bilingual family gets asked.
Short answers, all of them grounded in the same finding: bilingualism is not a risk factor for language delay.
“Will two languages confuse her?”
No. Children who hear two languages from birth sort them out the same way they sort out everything else — by use and by person. Mixing words inside a sentence is normal and temporary, and it is not a sign that the languages are competing.
“Will she be slower to talk?”
Her first word may come at roughly the same time. What often looks like a delay is measurement error: a milestone chart counts words in one language, and a bilingual child's words are split between two. Count the words she knows across both languages before concluding anything.
“Is it too late to start?”
The early years are the easiest window, but it is never nothing. What matters most is how much rich, warm, interactive language a child hears in a language and how consistently — not the age at which exposure began.
“Should we drop one language?”
Dropping a home language does not fix a speech or language difficulty — and it costs the child the relationship with the relatives who speak it. If there is a genuine concern, keep the home language and get an evaluation that covers all of them.
“Does screen time count?”
Not much, in the early years. Language grows from serve-and-return interaction with a person who pauses and responds. A video cannot wait for a child's answer, and the learning lives in the waiting. Video calls with a real relative are different — that is live interaction.
“Both parents speak different languages. Which?”
Whichever each of you speaks with the most ease and affection. The common strategies — one parent per language, or the minority language at home — are both fine. Consistency helps; rigid purity does not matter, and it is not a failure to mix.
What to watch instead of a word count
Communication milestones that hold in any language.
These are the signals that matter, and none of them depend on which language a child is learning first.
By 18 months
Words and shared attention
At least a few words besides caregiver names — counted across every language the child hears — and deliberate attempts to draw your attention to something interesting.
By 24 months
Two-word combinations
Short phrases that put ideas together: “more milk,” “daddy go,” “big dog.” Combinations matter more than any specific word.
By 36 months
Understood by familiar adults
Someone who knows the child well should understand most of what she says, and she should follow familiar two-step directions. Speech sounds will still be imperfect — that is expected.
Any age
Understanding versus speaking
Comprehension usually runs ahead of production. If a child understands but speaks little, that is a different picture from a child who does not seem to understand either — and worth describing precisely when you raise it.
Any age
Loss of skills
Words, gestures, or social connection that a child had and then lost warrants prompt attention at any age, in any language, under any circumstances.
If you are worried, ask for a bilingual evaluation — and do not wait for a referral.
In the U.S. you can contact your state's early intervention program directly for a free evaluation before age 3, and from age 3 you can ask the local public school system. Bring the question in both languages: what does she understand, what does she say, and with whom. The When to ask page has the exact wording to use on the phone.