At what age do children typically utter their first word?

Children typically utter their first word between 12 and 18 months of age. This stage in development is crucial as it marks the beginning of verbal communication, allowing children to express their needs and thoughts. During this period, they are not only developing motor skills for speech but also building their vocabulary and understanding of language.

Before this age range, infants primarily communicate through crying and gestures. After mastering a few words, children gradually expand their vocabulary over the next few months to include simple nouns and verbs. This foundational language development is essential for later communication skills and literacy.

The options representing ages earlier than 12 months generally refer to cooing or babbling, where infants experiment with sounds but do not yet fully articulate recognizable words. Meanwhile, the ages of 2-3 years and 4-5 years involve more advanced language skills, where children are creating sentences and using more complex vocabulary, but they are beyond the stage of uttering their first word. Thus, the stage of 12-18 months is indeed the typical age for a child's first word.