The stages of Child Language

Child Language-

Babbling (Under the age of 11 Months) –

• ·         Babies start to ‘coo’ within 6 to 8 weeks. A coo is to make a sound, similar to a pigeon.
• ·         2-5 months the babies will recognise the parent smiling
• ·         Babies start to laugh at 16 weeks
• ·         6 months onwards babies notice certain words, names.
• ·         Reduplication happens (repeating all of the word or just some of it)

Holophrastic Stage-

• ·         Over generalisation (child adding ‘ed’ to words and make them none standard e.g. I rided, I goed.
• ·         Start learning 10 to 20 new words a month
• ·         Not very good with conversation, don’t have many conversational skills, normally communicated with single words (They use a lot of nouns)
• ·         Aren’t able to use questions in their language (what, why) They use rising intonation (voice rises)
• ·         11-18 months is the one word stage

Two word utterances-

• ·         18-24months
• ·         Consonant clusters are avoided
• ·         Between 18-24 months, unstressed syllables are dropped (e.g. tato instead of potato)
• ·         When a child is 2 years old they know 200+ words.

Telegraphic stage-

• Starts at 24 months
•  Longer utterances, combination of words
• Good pronunciation, close to adult
• Will recognise turn taking when speaking. More complex speech. Can use imagination