Child Language Acquisition Flashcards

Flashcards covering the stages of child language acquisition from lecture notes.

Preverbal Stage

The first stage of language acquisition, occurring from 0-12 months, characterized by biological noises, cooing, laughing, and babbling.

Babbling

A stage where infants make the same sounds regardless of their environment, later narrowing to native language sounds.

Reduplicative Babbling

Babbling consisting of repeated syllables (e.g., ba-ba-ba).

Variegated Babbling

Babbling consisting of mixed syllables (e.g., ka-da-bu-ba).

Holophrastic Stage

Also known as the one-word stage (12-18 months), where single words represent entire utterances.

Over-extension

When a child uses a word to refer to a larger set of objects than is appropriate (e.g., using 'fly' for all insects).

Under-extension

When a child uses a word to refer to a smaller set of objects than is appropriate (e.g., using 'white' only for snow).

Two-Word Stage

A stage (18-24 months) when children begin to produce two-word phrases, typically consisting of open class words (nouns and verbs).

Telegraphic Stage

An early multi-word stage (24-36 months) where children use only the most important words to express ideas, omitting function words.

Multi-Word Stage

A stage (2.5 years +) characterized by more fluent and sophisticated language, longer sentences, and expanding vocabulary.

Child-Directed Speech

Language used by caregivers with babies, featuring simple vocabulary, short sentences, slow speech, and widened pitch.