Beginnings of language development

1. Before birth: Research by Mehler (1988) found that babies in France responded to the sound of the French language at four days old. Crying: During the first few weeks of life babies express themselves verbally indicating fear/hunger/pleasure etc. Beginnings of language development

2. Cooing (gurgling or mewing): Occurs when babies are 6/8 weeks old. This represents increased control over the vocal chords. Babbling: This important stage occurs between six and nine months. Combinations of consonants and vowels are produced such as ‘ba’ ‘ma’ ‘ga; often moving on to reduplicated syllables such as ‘dada’. Such sounds still have no meaning. Early stages of language acquisition

3. During the babbling phase the number of different phonemes produced by the child increases initially. This is known as phonemic expansion. Later, by the age of about 9/10 months a reduction in the number of phonemes begins to occur. This is phonemic contraction. Babbling: phonemic expansion and contraction

4. A further development during the babbling phase is that patterns of intonation begin to resemble speech. Their non verbal communication indicates their willingness to use language. For example, a pointing gesture might be combined with a particular facial expression. Babbing: intonation and gesture

5. By the end of the first year, signs of word recognition are usually evident. Words which are likely to be recognised include names of family members and those words relating to context e.g ‘bye bye’. First words

6. 18 months – approximately 50 words 2 years – approximately 200 words 5 years – approximately 2,000 words 7 years – approximately 4,000 words Lexical development

7. Studies demonstrate that there are predictable patterns in the words and types of words first acquired by children: Names daddy, mummy Common nouns referring to food/drink/humans/clothes/animals/toys Properties big, blue Actions sit, kick Personal and social me, bye Types of words

8. Concrete nouns are followed by verbs, then adjectives. Abstract nouns are not generally used until the ages of 5-7. Words which are for grammatical purposes including determiners (the, this) and prepositions are often excluded (to, in). Acquisition of lexis

9. Katherine Nelson (1973) identified four categories for early acquisition: Naming Actions/events Describing/modifying Personal/social. Lexical development

10. Jean Aitchison (1987) identified three stages or processes that occur during a child’s acquisition of vocabulary: Labelling is the first stage and involves making the link between the sounds of words and the object to which they refer. Packaging entails understanding a word’s range of meaning. Network building involves grasping the connections between words. Lexical development

11. Eve Clark also found that common adjectives such as ‘nice’ and ‘big’ are among children’s first fifty words, but spatial adjectives for example ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’ or ‘thick’ or ‘thin’ are acquired later. Lexical development

12. Under-extension is a common semantic ‘error’ by children. It occurs when a word is given a narrower meaning than it has in adult language i.e ‘ball’ is used for their ball, and no other balls. Over-extension is the opposite. For example the word ‘dog’ may be used for all four legged animals. This happens more frequently than under-extension. It is estimated that out of the 50 words a child may have learned, up to a third of these will be over-extended. Semantic development

13. Eve Clark’s study of first words (1977) found that children base overextension on: the physical qualities of objects features such as taste, sound, movement, shape, size and texture i.e. ‘more moon’ for stars. Semantic development

14. Command of all the vowels is achieved before command of the consonants. At 2 years the average child has mastered all of the vowels and around two thirds of consonants. At 4 years the child is likely to be having difficulty with only a few consonants. Consonants are first used correctly at the beginnings of words, whereas consonants at the end of words present more difficulty. Phonological development

15. Simplification: Deletion final consonants may be dropped unstressed syllables are often deleted consonant clusters are reduced. Simplification: Substitution Substituting easier sounds for harder ones: r as in rock becomes w thas in there becomes d/n or f t as in toebecomes d p as in pig becomes b. Phonological simplification

16. Children’s understanding of phonological patterns and their meanings develops more quickly than the child’s ability to reproduce them. As a child develops a wider range of meanings, they are expressed through intonation. This will lead to pragmatic intonation, for example ‘MY car’. Understanding language

17. One word stage between the ages of 1 year and 18 months. At first, children only communicate through holophrases, or single words that convey many meanings. A word can be interpreted to mean different things depending on the context it is used in. For example, a child may use the word ‘on’ to mean anything from ‘turn on the TV’ to ‘put my shoes on’ to ‘lift me up onto the chair’. On these occasions single words are taking the place of more complex grammatical constructions. Grammatical development

18. The two word stage occurs at the age of approximately 18 months. The two words are usually sequenced correctly (grammatically) subject+ verb. Other common sequences are: verb + object subject + object subject + complement. Grammatical development

19. Functional development: Halliday