THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE IN CHILDREN

The reflex vocalizations and chirps (birth - 2months).

First month

Réflex vocalizations. For example:

Smile, crying…

Second month

“Chirps” without communicative purpose.

It is when babies start articulatory exercising and auditory exercising.

The babbling ( from 3 to 6 months).

Gutural and vocal sounds.

First attempts to control the mouth/tongue movements.

Repeat of /ga/, /ge/.

Emit different sounds to hear themselves.

They start to interact with others.

Recognize their name.

6 months: if they hear “mommy” or “daddy”, they will look toward the appropriate person.

The reduplicative babbling (from 6 to 12 months).

More vocalizations.

“Gestures” as a form of communication.

Vocalizations they emit are “reduplicative". For example:

“Mamama”, “tatata”, “bababa”.

Vocalizations follow this pattern in spanish: Consontant + Vocal.

Sensory detail

Understand familiar words. Such as:

Dad, mom, baby, bread...

Socalizations are more precise and controlled.

Communicative possibilities are also expanded because of their improvement in motor skills.

Holophrastic Stage (12-18 months).

Start to name familiar things. For example:

“Mama”, “doggie”, “car”...

“One single sound” to communicate a whole sentence. For example:

/Aba/ means “give me water” or “it is raining” or “I am inside the bathtub.

Simplifications are frequent.

/Tes/ instead of “tres” or /ame/ instead of “dame”.

If adults want to understand babies in this stage, they need to pay attention to paralinguistic elements:

Tone

Attitude

Gestures

Symbolic gestures to:

Refer to objects.

Request things.

Describe objects.

Reply to questions.

Telegraphic Stage (18-24 months).

Two or three-word combos.

Omit articles (telegraphic).

Two-word sentences to:

Locate things.

Coche/allá, mamá/aquí.

Make demands.

Más/papel.

Express lack of something.

No/chupe.

Show possession.

Ask questions.

Describe events.

Later on, these combinations express:

Agent + action.

Papá/jugar.

Owner and owned.

Nene/zapato.

Localized object + localization.

Pelota/patio.

The first sentences construction (from 2 to 3 years). Advances in:

Lexis → Lexis Explosion.

A rate of 10 words per week.

The amount of words that they understand is higher than the amount of words they can produce.

Morphology → grammatical features in the formation of words:

The flexion used for “gender” and “number”.

La casa / las casas. El coche / los coches.

Syntax → they have more structures that accompany verbs and nouns.

María es guapa / Comí y jugué a la pelota.

Asking questions.

Asking questions when they turn 32 months.

What and where.

36 months.

Who, how, why, when, how much…

Towards and adult language (3-6 years).

Emiting different vocalizations but they start to produce more complex sounds and they start talking.

Copulative sentences.

Quiero comer

Causal sentences.

No vamos a la playa porque llueve.

Final or ending sentences.

Lo cojo para dormir.

Adversatives.

Pero yo quiero fruta.