Language development
Why is understanding language development important?
Language development refers to the development of a child's ability to communicate verbally. Knowing the stages of speech help to identify how far along the developmental process of developing speech a child is. As well, recognizing a child's propensity to learn languages early in life can help teach a child a secondary language.
Patricia Kuhl on Babies as Statisticians for Language
For an in depth lesson on the development of linguistic theories and how babies learn languages watch the video linked below. For this page, we will focus on the six stages to language development.
Language development refers to the development of a child's ability to communicate verbally. Knowing the stages of speech help to identify how far along the developmental process of developing speech a child is. As well, recognizing a child's propensity to learn languages early in life can help teach a child a secondary language.
Patricia Kuhl on Babies as Statisticians for Language
For an in depth lesson on the development of linguistic theories and how babies learn languages watch the video linked below. For this page, we will focus on the six stages to language development.
http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html
Language Acquisition
Language Acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. There are five basic stages of language acquisition: cooing, babbling, one-word utterances, telegraphic speech, and normal speech.
Language Acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. There are five basic stages of language acquisition: cooing, babbling, one-word utterances, telegraphic speech, and normal speech.
- Cooing: Appears at about 6 months or so. All infants coo using all the phonemes from every language. It comprises mostly of vowel sounds like “aaa”, “ooo” etc
- Babbling: Appears at around 9 months. Infants are starting to selectively use the phonemes from their native language. Consonants are also introduced along with vowels and he is able to correlate words with objects or people. It starts using words with repetitive sounds like “dada”, “mama” etc.
- One-word utterances: At around 12 months, children start using words. Starts using fairly complex words. Also can recognize correct pronunciation of familiar words. The next stage observed is two word utterance by age of 18 months.
- Telegraphic speech: Children start making multi-word utterances that lack function words i.e. conjunctions & articles. (about 2 years old) for eg. “water now”
- Normal speech: By about 5-6 years of age, children have almost normal speech with good command over syntax and semantics. In later stage development of vocabulary and pragmatics takes place.