1. Beginnings of language development
Before birth: Research by Mehler (1988) found that babies in France responded to the sound of the French language at four days old.
Crying: During the first few weeks of life babies express themselves verbally indicating fear/hunger/pleasure etc.

2. Early stages of language acquisition
Cooing (gurgling or mewing): Occurs when babies are 6/8 weeks old. This represents increased control over the vocal chords.
Babbling: This important stage occurs between six and nine months. Combinations of consonants and vowels are produced such as ‘ba’ ‘ma’ ‘ga; often moving on to reduplicated syllables such as ‘dada’. Such sounds still have no meaning.

3. Babbling: phonemic expansion and contraction
During the babbling phase the number of different phonemes produced by the child increases initially. This is known as phonemic expansion.
Later, by the age of about 9/10 months a reduction in the number of phonemes begins to occur. This is phonemic contraction.

4. Babbing: intonation and gesture
A further development during the babbling phase is that patterns of intonation begin to resemble speech.
Their non verbal communication indicates their willingness to use language. For example, a pointing gesture might be combined with a particular facial expression.

5. First words
By the end of the first year, signs of word recognition are usually evident. Words which are likely to be recognised include names of family members and those words relating to context e.g ‘bye bye’.

6. Lexical development 18 months – approximately 50 words
2 years – approximately 200 words
5 years – approximately 2,000 words
7 years – approximately 4,000 words

7. Types of words
Studies demonstrate that there are predictable patterns in the words and types of words first acquired by children:
Names daddy, mummy
Common nouns referring to food/drink/humans/clothes/animals/toys
Properties big, blue
Actions sit, kick
Personal and social me, bye

8. Acquisition of lexis
Concrete nouns are followed by verbs, then adjectives.
Abstract nouns are not generally used until the ages of 5- 7.
Words which are for grammatical purposes including determiners (the, this) and prepositions are often excluded (to, in).

9. Lexical development
Katherine Nelson (1973) identified four categories for early acquisition:
Naming
Actions/events
Describing/modifying
Personal/social. 

10. Lexical development
Jean Aitchison (1987) identified three stages or processes that occur during a child’s acquisition of vocabulary:
Labelling is the first stage and involves making the link between the sounds of words and the object to which they refer.
Packaging entails understanding a word’s range of meaning.
Network building involves grasping the connections between words.

11. Lexical development
Eve Clark also found that common adjectives such as ‘nice’ and ‘big’ are among children’s first fifty words, but spatial adjectives for example ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’ or ‘thick’ or ‘thin’ are acquired later.

12. Semantic development
Under-extension is a common semantic ‘error’ by children. It occurs when a word is given a narrower meaning than it has in adult language i.e ‘ball’ is used for their ball, and no other balls.
Over-extension is the opposite. For example the word ‘dog’ may be used for all four legged animals. This happens more frequently than under-extension. It is estimated that out of the 50 words a child may have learned, up to a third of these will be over-extended.

13. Semantic development
Eve Clark’s study of first words (1977) found that children base overextension on:
the physical qualities of objects
features such as taste, sound, movement, shape, size and texture i.e. ‘more moon’ for stars.

14. Phonological development
Command of all the vowels is achieved before command of the consonants.
At 2 years the average child has mastered all of the vowels and around two thirds of consonants.
At 4 years the child is likely to be having difficulty with only a few consonants.
Consonants are first used correctly at the beginnings of words, whereas consonants at the end of words present more difficulty.

15. Phonological simplification
Simplification: Deletion
final consonants may be dropped
unstressed syllables are often deleted
consonant clusters are reduced.
Simplification: Substitution
Substituting easier sounds for harder ones:
r as in rock becomes w
th as in there becomes d/n or f
t as in toe becomes d
p as in pig becomes b.

16. Understanding language
Children’s understanding of phonological patterns and their meanings develops more quickly than the child’s ability to reproduce them.
As a child develops a wider range of meanings, they are expressed through intonation. This will lead to pragmatic intonation, for example ‘MY car’.

17. Grammatical development
One word stage between the ages of 1 year and 18 months.
At first, children only communicate through holophrases, or single words that convey many meanings. A word can be interpreted to mean different things depending on the context it is used in.
For example, a child may use the word ‘on’ to mean anything from ‘turn on the TV’ to ‘put my shoes on’ to ‘lift me up onto the chair’. On these occasions single words are taking the place of more complex grammatical constructions.

18. Grammatical development
The two word stage occurs at the age of approximately 18 months.
The two words are usually sequenced correctly (grammatically) subject+ verb.
Other common sequences are:
verb + object
subject + object
subject + complement.

19. Functional development: Halliday
Instrumental
To get something e.g. ‘go toily’ meaning I want to go to the toilet.
These four terms are about the child satisfying their social, emotional and physical needs.
Regulatory
To make requests or give an order
e.g. ‘Not your teddy’ meaning Leave my teddy alone.
Interactional
To relate to others e.g. ‘nice mummy’
Personal
To convey a sense of personal identity and to express views and feelings e.g. ‘naughty doggy’.
Heuristic
To find out about the immediate environment e.g. ‘what boy doing?’
These three terms are about the child coming to terms with their environment and their place within it.
Imaginative
To be creative through language that relates to imaginative play, storytelling, rhymes and humour, ‘One day my Daddy came home and he said …’
Representational
To convey information e.g. I am three.

20. Child language acquisition: summary
Features
Vegetative
Crying
0-4 months
Coughing/burping/sucking
Cooing
4-7 months
Grunts/sighs becoming vowel like ‘coos’. Laughter starts. Hard consonants/vowels produced.
Pitch and loudness practised.
Babbling
6- 12 months
Sounds linked to own language.
Reduplicated words.
Proto-words
9 -12 months
Word-like vocalisations.
12 months = 50 words
Holophrastic
12 -18
months
One word utterances.
Two word
18 – 24
Two words combined to create simple syntactical structures.
24 months = 200 words
Telegraphic
24 – 36 months
Three or more words joined in increasingly complex and accurate orders. 36 months = 2,000 words
Post telegraphic
36 months
Increasing awareness of grammatical rules and irregularities.