Parents often try to teach words. Children rarely learn them that way. They learn a word when an adult names what they are already looking at, at the moment they are looking at it, many times, and the word works. Once you see that, the way forward at home becomes obvious — and so does the one sign that should not be waited out.
Three conditions, every time: the child's attention is on the thing; the word meets them there, repeatedly; and the child gets the feeling that it worked — they said (or tried) something and the world responded. Vocabulary grows in life and play, not in lessons.
Cards are not bad; they are just not where words land. A word met on a card once is weaker than a word met fifty times in the bath, at the park and in a book. Life and play, with an adult who names things, is the method.
Start with your ward's public health centre or child development support centre, or come and see us. No diagnosis is needed to talk.
There is no single safe number. We look at the whole picture: how much your child understands, how they interact — pointing, sharing, turn-taking — and whether the number is growing. For bilingual children, count across all languages. If you are unsure, bring the printable checklist to a visit and we will look at it together.
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You do not need a diagnosis, a certificate, or fluent Japanese to take the first step. Send us a message in English, tell us your child's age and what you are noticing about their speech and language, and we will take it from there.
