Acquiring Language

How Babies Talk is a book written by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. The book discusses how babies acquire language throughout various stages (The first three years of life) of their infant life. The chapter I chose to elaborate on was chapter 7, which outlines language and grammar between the ages of twenty-four to thirty-six months.

Children’s language development usually begins in their first three months. They will begin by learning to use their voice and enjoying vocal play. Babies will watch faces and mouths to try and copy movements and sounds.

18-24 months | Understands and responds properly to some words and simple commands. May match similar objects. Distinguishes between 'you' and 'me'. | Vocabulary increases each month. Asks simple questions. Points to pictures in a book. | Can walk backwards. Grasp, hold and throw a ball. May begin to run. | Identifies primary caregiver. Imitates movements and facial expressions. Develops a sense of security. | Not applicable |

At around 1 year, they may be starting to utter their first words ‘mama’ or ‘dada’. They will learn to put words together by the time they are 2 years of age and they may know up to 200 words. Between 2 and 3 they will start using plurals and negative. Their grammar may not always be correct. They could say ‘I throwed it’ and you could reply with ‘you threw it did you?’ This is a way of correcting what they are saying, without actually telling them that they are wrong and should say it this way.

It is believed that babies develop language when they are in the utero and it continues throughout their lifetime. By twelve weeks old, babies may register the sounds they can hear and at the same time make basic visual, auditory and tactile mind maps (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). This allows the infant to turn towards any familiar sounds and noises. Babies begin to communicate with people around them quite quickly. By two months old, babies begin to make ‘cooing’ and other noises; this indicates the phonological component of language development. By six to nine months babies begin to experience with a mixture of sounds, and often you will hear a baby babbling. Babbling development is similar across many different languages and even hearing impaired babies will go through this stage. They may copy the sounds they are introduced too or beginning to recognize familiar

At the age of 6-11 months babies begin to babble such things such as mama. Babies at this age often try to communicate by actions or gestures and tries to repeat simple sounds that are used a lot around them.

Communication development 0-3 years listening to parents and practitioner and starting to recognise their name by 1 and half they should be able to say mama dada ect and start to join in with rhymes such as twinkle twinkle little star. At the age of 3 they should be able to say at least 200 words. If the child has a speech problem then we use 100 words pictures and sign language to see what they know.

Next, his language is still developing at this point. I showed him a stuffed animal dog and asked him if he could identify it and tell me what it is. The infant gazed at it and responded “woof,woof,woof!” He responded by what the dog sounds like. Secondly, I asked him to point out his body parts. For example, his ears, eyes and belly button. That moment I said belly button he pointed at it. He was able to repeat names and his toys that he owned. As I began to speak in long-complex sentences he stared at me for a second and then looked away and started doing something else.

• Will enjoy lights, sounds ,music and colours. Will sing and copy actions to rhymes.

Language development is related to this stage because language learning starts at birth. They listen to the speech of those close to them, and startle or cry if there is an unexpected noise.

| Age 3-4 years old. The child is more fluent with the language that is used at home, and is able to communicate with their parents through questions, and expressing their thoughts. Through the rest of the child’s schooling, the oral development becomes more complex resulting in them being able to communicate with family and others.

The developmental stages of language are; pre-linguistic stage, one-word stage, two or three-word utterances, more complex sentences, further development between 3-4, and further development between 4 and 5. In the pre-linguistic stage from birth to 1 year, babies can tell the difference between voices and other sounds, they can start to use sounds such as ‘dadadadada’ or ‘mamamamama’. In the one-word stage from 12 to 18 months young children can have a variety of

However, Pinker (1994) then goes onto note that the particular sub-stage of reduplicated babbling occurs around 7-8 months, and states that the children will exercise phonemes and syllable patterns that are not specific to a singular language, but rather are seen as common across a variety of languages. Yet, Pinker (1994) does also argue that the children are able to distinguish between phonemes of their own mother tongue, which has been seen from birth, and this is seen to be more prominent by the time the child reaches the age of around 10 months. Pinker (1994) refers to this as the children no longer being ‘universal phoneticians’, and states that the children will no longer distinguish foreign phonemes.

Then, cooing appears when the child is between six to eight weeks old, where the infant demonstrates happy vowel like sounds (Hoff, 2006). At age sixteen weeks infants begin to demonstrate laughter and vocal play (Hoff, 2006). Between six and nine month old babies begin to produce babbling sounds, then they utter their first word around age one (Hoff, 2006). When children speak their first word it is usually as an isolated unit (Goldin-Meadow, 2006), and not considered a major step in phonological development (Hoff, 2006). Children then learn that their first spoken word is composed of smaller parts, which is known as morphology, and that the word can be used as a building block for larger sentences called syntax (Goldin-Meadow, 2006). A child’s first word goes farther then communicating a message between the child and communicative partner, the word retains symbolic meaning (Goldin-Meadow, 2006). At age eighteen months phonological processes develop, in which the child’s speech characteristics begin to transform (Hoff, 2006). Subsequent to eighteen months the child’s vocabulary grows and with this growth the child is able to phonemically represent a sound with the mental representation of every word that possesses a sound (Hoff, 2006).

The pre –language or the pre-speech stage is the period from about three months to six months. We can call this period the zero stage because in this period the child is only a listener and he does not produce understandable sounds. The only sounds that the child produces in this period are crying and screaming. At this stage, the child usually reacts to any speech