The two-word stage often occurs from 18-24 months, consisting of utterances generally two nouns or a noun and a verb. Some examples of this include baby chair meaning 'The baby is sitting on the chair' or doggie bark, meaning 'The dog is barking'.

Combining simple words that your child already has in their vocabulary with pivot words can give your child an opportunity to use expanded utterances to communicate their wants, needs and ideas. Some examples of pivot words in two word phrases are: o “Hi baby/mama/bear” o ” Bye baby/mama/bear” o “Ball in” o “In cup” o “Want cookie” o “More cookie”

One of the strategies that we use to help them move forward is to expand on their utterance and build on their word to model a 2-word sentence. ‘Cracker’ becomes ‘Want cracker.’ ‘Angry’ is built into ‘Shoshana’s angry.’ ‘More’ turns into ‘more milk.’