At what age is first communion received?

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The age at which a baptized person received first communion is…..well….a moving target. Until sometime in the middle of the last century, the pattern within families active in the church was to baptize infants and communicate at “the age of reason” which varied from place to place, but was linked with confirmation. Typically, whenever a child was confirmed, first communion followed immediately.
 
The current Book of Common Prayer assumes that baptism is complete initiation. Thus, since the mid 1960s (the trial use period for the current book) the notion that infants might receive the sacrament at their baptism has been gaining in popularity. It is not at all unusual for an infant to be communicated at the Sunday morning Eucharist at which the baptism occurs. Increasingly, infant baptism is accompanied by oil anointing, at the hand of the bishop if presiding, or by the priest, using oil blessed by the bishop. This underscores the concept that initiation is one event, not two. In the place of the earlier idea of confirmation in these cases, baptized, anointed children are expected to renew their commitment in the presence of bishop as they move toward adulthood.
 
In the case of an adult baptism, both initiatory gestures happen in the baptismal rite and communion follows.