Despite the language we speak or our culture, it is thought that people go through the same stages of language development at approximately the same age. In this article you can find the stages that children go through in the language acquisition process, as well as the approximate age at which they move to each stage. You will also be able to see a description of what happens in each stadium.
To acquire language, the maturation of the nervous system, certain cognitive development and socio-emotional development are necessary, since the child will only learn to speak if he is exposed to language (Gross, 2005).
There is a general consensus in relation to the three major stages of language development, through which the child advances gradually (Gross, 2005):
YO. Prelinguistic stage (0 to 12 months): Babies are born without knowing how to speak, although they make various sounds with their vocal organs, including crying, which is usually the dominant sound, and even parents learn to discriminate different types of crying. By the first month, children learn to distinguish between phonemes and other sounds, even though sometimes they sound very similar. It is thought that this perceptual ability may be innate (Gross, 2005).
Within this stage we have pre-babbling (0-2 months) where reflex vocalizations and chirping predominate (like the aforementioned crying); and babbling where, from 3 to 6 months, vocal play predominates and then (from 6 to 10 months) imitation (Navarro Pablo, sf)
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Although children begin by producing a few phonemes, they quickly produce almost all existing phonemes, whether or not they belong to their native language (phonetic expansion). At approximately 9-10 months, phonetic contraction begins: now the phonemes used will only be those corresponding to the language of the environment. Deaf children stop babbling at this age, probably due to a lack of feedback from their own voice (Gross, 2005).
Already at 4 months they can read lips and discriminate sounds. At around that age the babbling stage begins. It is not an imitation of the sounds he hears from adults, because it uses sounds from different languages. Deaf children also babble, suggesting that nature allows for a range of phonemes before context shapes language. Many of the sounds in babbling are vowel-consonant pairs (da-da, ma-ma, ta-ta). After a while, babbling becomes the sounds and intonations of the environment, and by 10 months, a trained ear can identify the language of the home (Myers, 2006).
II. One word stage (12 to 18 months): The child produces his first word at approximately one year, however babbling continues for about 6 more months. The child will understand more words than he produces (Gross, 2005).
By their first birthday, most children move to the one-word stage: they have learned that sounds have meaning and try to use them to communicate. At first, words usually contain a single syllable and probably only those closest to the baby understand it (Myers, 2006).
III. Two-word sentence stage. The latter is divided into Stage 1 of grammar, which ranges from 18 to 30 months and is characterized by being a telegraphic language, meaning that the production and imitation of sentences is simple (Gross, 2005).
At approximately 18 months they go from learning one word per week to 1 word per day. Before the age of 2, they usually enter the two-word stage, that is, they begin to form simple two-word sentences. For this reason, language is also characterized as “telegraphic speech” at this stage (Myers, 2006).
Although 18-month-old children can say between 3 and 50 words, their receptive vocabulary is greater than their productive vocabulary, meaning that they understand more words than they can produce (Weiten, 2001).
In grammar stage 2, which goes from 30 months onwards, language grows rapidly and sentences also become more complex and longer (Gross, 2005).
Once the two-word stage has been surpassed, the child begins to construct longer sentences and, by the time he reaches school age, he already understands complex phrases and even double meanings. Interest in language ambiguity indicates the development of metalinguistic awareness (Myers, 2006, WeIten, 2001).
It is considered that language development will stop if a subject remains isolated during the critical period of acquisition, that is, the first 5 to 7 years of life. This is often the case for deaf children who did not experience sign language in the early years and there is also the well-known case of (Myers, 2006).
Sources:
Gross, R. (2005), Psychology, the science of mind and behavior 5th edition. Hodder Arnold Publication
Myers, D. (2006) Psychology 7th edition. Panamericana Medical Editorial: Madrid
Navarro Pablo, M. (sf), .
Written, W. (2001), Psychology. Themes and variations Fifth edition. Wadsworth Thomson Learning: USA
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