Child Language Acquisition – Key Vocabulary

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering major terms, stages, and theories related to child language acquisition, behaviourism, nativism, and cognitive development.

Preverbal Stage

The period from birth to roughly 7 months when infants produce cries and vegetative sounds but no true speech.

Babbling Stage

Approx. 7–11 months; infants experiment with consonant- and vowel-like sounds (e.g., “ba-ba”), later showing variegated patterns.

Variegated Babbling

Babbling (≈9 months+) where consonants and vowels vary across syllables (e.g., “ba-di-ga”).

Holophrastic Stage

Around 11-18 months; children use single words (holophrases) to convey whole sentences or intentions.

Telegraphic Stage

18 months-2.5 years; two- or three-word utterances that omit function words (e.g., “Daddy eat”).

Multi-word Stage

≈2.5 years onward; longer utterances with correct word order but still developing grammar and function words.

Closed-class Words

Function words (e.g., prepositions, pronouns, auxiliaries) that are typically missing in early speech stages.

Open-class Words

Content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) that dominate children’s early vocabularies.

Behaviourism

Theory (Skinner) that language is learned through imitation, stimulus-response, and reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement

Rewarding a child’s utterance, increasing the likelihood the behavior will recur (Skinner’s behavourism)

Negative Reinforcement

Withholding attention or punishing, decreasing the likelihood an utterance will recur. (Skinner’s behaviourism)

Stimulus-Response Theory

Behaviourist view that environmental input (stimulus) triggers speech (response) shaped by reinforcement.

Skinner

Behaviourist who proposed that language develops through conditioning and habit formation.

Nativism

Chomsky’s view that humans are innately equipped with linguistic knowledge enabling rapid language acquisition.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Chomsky’s hypothetical brain mechanism providing innate grammatical knowledge.

Universal Grammar (UG)

Innate set of abstract linguistic principles governing possible human languages.

Poverty of Stimulus

Argument that input is too limited for children to learn language solely from environment, implying innate knowledge. (Chomsky)

Parameters (UG)

Binary linguistic options within UG that are set according to the child’s language exposure.

Phonological Universals

Cross-language patterns in how consonants/vowels are produced and classified (e.g., place/manner of articulation).

Syntactic Universals

Shared grammatical properties across languages, such as presence of verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns.

Semantic Universals

Common meaning categories found in languages, e.g., basic colour terms like red, blue, green.

Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

Bruner’s term for environmental scaffolding—adult behaviours (e.g., book reading) that support language learning.

Scaffolding

Temporary guidance provided by a more knowledgeable partner to help a child perform beyond current ability. (Vygotsky)

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Gap between what a learner can do alone and with assistance (Vygotsky).

Private Speech

Self-directed talk children use to guide actions; gradually internalised as thought. (Vygotsky)

Sociocultural Theory

Vygotsky’s view that cognitive and language development arise from social interaction and cultural tools.

Co-construction of Knowledge

Learning process where understanding is built jointly with a more skilled partner before being internalised (Vygotsky)

Make-believe Play

Vygotskian form of ZPD where children practice skills and roles through imaginative play.

Constructivism

Piaget’s theory that learners actively construct knowledge through interaction with their environment.

Assimilation

Fitting new information into existing cognitive schemas (Piaget)

Accommodation

Modifying cognitive schemas when new information doesn’t fit existing ones (Piaget)

Equilibration

Piagetian process of balancing assimilation and accommodation to achieve cognitive stability (Piaget)

Sensorimotor Stage

Piaget: Birth-2 yrs; learning via senses and actions, development of object permanence.

Pre-operational Stage

Piaget: 2-7 yrs; symbolic language, egocentrism, difficulty with conservation tasks.

Concrete Operational Stage

Piaget: 7-11 yrs; logical thinking about concrete objects, mastery of conservation.

Formal Operational Stage

Piaget: 11 yrs+; abstract reasoning, hypothetical and deductive thinking.

Seriation

Ability to order objects by size; emerges in concrete operational stage.

Object Permanence

Understanding that objects exist even when not perceived; achieved near end of sensorimotor stage.

Egocentrism (Piaget)

Pre-operational tendency to view the world solely from one’s own perspective.

Animism

Attributing life to inanimate objects, common in pre-operational children.

Enactive Representation

Bruner: learning through actions or motor responses.

Iconic Representation

Bruner: learning through mental images or pictures.

Symbolic Representation

Bruner: learning through language and symbols.

David Crystal’s Stage One

Early stage where children use single words/holophrases to request, attract attention, or comment.

David Crystal’s Stage Two

Stage where children start asking ‘what/where’ questions and expand vocabulary for classification.

David Crystal’s Stage Three

Stage featuring basic SVO sentence structures and emerging use of auxiliaries and prepositions.

David Crystal’s Stage Four

Stage with complex sentences, ‘why’ questions, indirect requests, and pragmatic awareness.

David Crystal’s Stage Five

Stage where children competently use language for all communicative purposes, including hypotheticals.