My 1-year old had a toy with a small plastic non-functioning telephone. After 1 demonstration where we pantomimed using a phone, he started picking up everythin

My 1-year old had a toy with a small plastic non-functioning telephone. After 1 demonstration where we pantomimed using a phone, he started picking up everything and holding it to his ear. Fruit, books, other toys, pretending it were a telephone and trying to speak into it. Every time he did this, we'd play along and say "Hello?" into our own nearby imaginary phone. He got a reaction from us that reinforced the game. Eventually I gave him a real handset from an old rotary phone to play with. He might never have the experience of calling someone on it, but babies are at least able to figure out pretty quickly how to use these things in play.