Reacts to events in his/her environment.
Responds to people.
Turn-Taking (reciprocity).
Develop a longer attention span (3-6 minutes on his own. Attention is the gateway to learning.)
Shifts and shares attention with others (joint attention/sharing an experience).
Plays with a variety of toys appropriately. Play is how toddlers learn, attend, and think.
Receptive Language (understanding language). Toddlers have to understand words before they use them.
Vocalizes or makes noises appropriately.
Imitating. Imitation develops as a motor skills first (imitates actions on objects), then moves to body movements (waving, blowing kisses), these movements turn into gestures (holding arms up to be picked up), imitates sounds/vocal play, and finally words.
Children use gestures on their own to imitate non-verbal communication. Gestures emerge before words. Children won’t talk until they use a wide variety of gestures (waving, pointing, and leading).
Initiations with others to get his/her needs met (The toddler takes the lead in trying to gain your attention). Learns to communicate with intent on their own.