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The Steps Of First Language Development

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Response #1 The steps of first language development can easily be described like that flashy block game found in every arcade. The point is to have the player stack blocks, one on top of another, to build a tower and win a cheap plastic prize. If you play too fast, your haphazardly placed blocks cause the tower to fall violently without notice. The most important part of this game is that you cannot continue to build if you missed a block, and if you try to continue without a stable base you set yourself up for failure. I wish to reflect on this because it explains why my older brother had trouble mastering the steps of L-S-R-W. My brother, Robert, was born in 1994 and did not start to speak in full sentences until he was almost seven. I was born nineteen months later, but had started to speak before him. Most of the teachers, and other parents, thought my brother was mentally disabled because he would not speak. Robert was also a year older than the children in class, he had repeated kindergarten to improve his social skills, and he was unnaturally tall for his age; both of these qualities added to the perceptions that he was developmentally delayed. My parents were concerned that he would never speak. They knew that it would be hard for him to progress because he had a buildup of wax in his ears that muffled everything that he heard. The other problem came from moving down to California from Canada. Although both places speak English, the dialect is different, which

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