At 12 months, it's completely normal for a child not to have the J sound yet. This sound typically doesn't show up until somewhere between 3.5 and 5 years old, so there's no reason to expect it this early. You make it by starting with a CH shape and turning your voice on for it, and words like jump, jar, and bridge are good ones to model once your child is closer to that age. Right now, though, the more useful thing to watch is your child's overall communication, not this one sound. Pay attention to how your baby lets you know what they want, imitates sounds, understands simple directions, plays, and reacts to frustration. A missing J sound means nothing on its own. What matters more is whether your child is building a broad range of communication skills, or whether you're seeing a pattern of very limited communication, or the loss of skills they once had. For now, the best thing you can do is model sounds naturally, inside words your child already cares about, with your face visible and the word said just a touch slower than usual. Accept whatever approximation comes out. There's no need to turn everyday moments into a test. Talk to your pediatrician or a speech-language pathologist if your child is hard to understand, has very few words for their age, seems to lose words they used to say, doesn't seem to hear well, or gets upset when trying to communicate. For more on what to expect at this stage, the speech activities by age hub is a good place to look, and you can also check guides focused on the J sound or on speech development for 12-month-olds. Little Words is meant to support practice at home. It isn't a medical device, an AAC replacement, or a stand-in for a licensed speech-language pathologist, pediatrician, early intervention program, school team, or full developmental evaluation.