Between twelve and eighteen months, children begin to produce a variety of recogniz-
able single-unit utterances. This period, traditionally called the one-word stage, is
characterized by speech in which single terms are uttered for everyday objects such as
"milk," "cookie," "cat," "cup" and "spoon" (usually pronounced [pun]). Other forms
such as [Asa] may occur in circumstances that suggest the child is producing a version
of What's that, so the label "one-word" for this stage may be misleading and a term
such as "single-unit" would be more accurate. We sometimes use the term holophras-
tic (meaning a single form functioning as a phrase or sentence) to describe an utterance
that could be analyzed as a word, a phrase, or a sentence.
While many of these holophrastic utterances seem to be used to name objects, they
may also be produced in circumstances that suggest the child is already extending their
use. An empty bed may elicit the name of a sister who normally sleeps in the bed, even
in the absence of the person named. During this stage, then, the child may be capable of
referring to Karen and bed, but is not yet ready to put the forms together to produce a
more complex phrase. Well, it is a lot to expect from someone who can only walk with
a stagger and has to come down stairs backwards.